29. Liath
LIATH
Isat with Nuala at lunch on Monday with my spine too straight and my coffee going cold in my hand, scanning the Ravenwood courtyard again and again, never settling anywhere for long, as if the danger might show itself any minute.
A whole day had passed since Lorcan’s bedroom. I had no idea how much runway I had left. No idea when he’d decide to collect, or how, or whether I’d see it coming at all.
Every laugh from the table beside us sounded too sharp. Every time someone called out across the courtyard, my shoulders went up.
Nuala was talking. I was nodding at the right intervals and hearing none of it.
A prickle of awareness raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Across the courtyard, Lorcan sat with Finn, Rafe, and Breezy at the far stone table, one arm slung along the back of his chair.
He was looking straight at me.
Shite.
He lifted two fingers and curled them once, a come-here motion you’d use for a dog. Or a lewd gesture of what he’d done to me while he had me in the straitjacket.
The back of my neck went hot.
For one savage second I considered flipping him off.
But the memory of the deal I’d made with him stopped me cold.
I owe you.
My own words. In my own voice. The grin on his face when I’d said it.
I stood up. Nuala rose with me automatically, already scanning the courtyard for whatever had made me move.
Every step across the cobblestones felt like it had an audience. Students tracked me with open, avid attention.
I kept my chin up and my face neutral as if strolling across the courtyard into sacred Hot Boy territory was something I’d chosen to do.
Lorcan didn’t look up when I stopped in front of him. He was still talking, mid-story, gesturing with one hand. “…but Coach made me run laps anyway, the sadistic bollocks.”
Rafe lost it. Breezy’s whole body shook.
Lorcan let the laughter run out before he glanced up at me.
“Fetch me a coffee,” he said, loud enough that all heads nearby turned toward us.
I forced a smile, the effort of it pulling at something behind my back teeth. “I’ll try not to poison it.”
“Try harder not to spill it,” he said and dropped his gaze back to the table.
I turned away before my face could betray me and stomped all the way to the coffee cart.
Nuala fell into step beside me, her voice dropping the moment we were clear of his table. “What the hell is going on?”
She watched me fumble for coins with hands that were not quite steady.
“Since when do you fetch Lorcan Lasair anything?”
“Since I woke up cursed, apparently,” I muttered, because I couldn’t afford the truth.
She didn’t laugh. I could feel her eyes on the side of my face, taking inventory of what I wasn’t saying. “Liath,” she said quietly.
My name in her voice, low and careful, like she was worried about the answer.
I stared too hard at the stack of coffee lids beside the urn. “Long story.”
My fingers found the lid on his cup before I turned back. I pressed it down, then eased it just slightly loose. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough that it would slosh if he tilted it, hopefully all over his expensive dark jacket.
The childishness of the thought only made me hate him more for reducing me to it.
I crossed back to his table. “My liege.”
I set the cup in front of him with precise, deliberate care and stepped back with my hands folded, the picture of congeniality.
Lorcan’s gaze dropped to the cup. Then to the lid. Then back up to my face.
The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile, something calculating. He pressed the lid firmly back into place with one long finger, the snap of it audible. Then he lifted the cup and took a slow, deliberate sip without breaking eye contact with me over the rim.
Something hot and completely useless flared in my chest.
“Is that all?” I asked.
His mouth was still resting against the rim when the first cold drop landed on my shoulder. Then another.
Lorcan lowered the cup and glanced up at the sky with unhurried ease. The sky had gone the color of a bruise.
“Umbrella,” he said. “Now.”
Damn him. Of course he didn’t have his own damn umbrella.
I reached into my bag, found the strap, and yanked it free. I held the handle out toward him.
He didn’t take it. He looked at it, then at me. “You can hold it.”
I bit back a scowl as I clicked it open above his head.
The rain arrived all at once, pattering across the cobblestones in a gray sheet.
Students around us scrambled for bags and jackets. Rafe swore as he rummaged for something to shield his head. Breezy upended his chips.
Within ten seconds, my shoulders were soaked through. Within twenty, water had found the gap at my collar and was tracking cold lines down my spine.
Lorcan turned back to his friends, all huddled under their own version of shade now. He didn’t so much as glance at me while I stood beside him in the rain like a very furious coat stand.
I stood there, glaring at a fixed point above his head and breathing through my nose, the weight of the surrounding students’ eyes pressing against my skin, their laughter cutting into me. Poor little Rua was so obsessed she was holding an umbrella open for Lorcan.
The humiliation burned so hot under my skin I could barely breathe around it.
Nuala had retreated to Finn’s side where he was holding an umbrella over them both. Her eyes were on me, concern pulling her brows together. She started to rise.
Finn’s arm went around her and he drew her into his lap, his mouth close to her ear. Whatever he said made her stay put, though her eyes didn’t leave me.
“Jesus, Lorc.” Breezy had produced a jacket and was wearing it over his head, peering at the umbrella with naked envy. “I ask girls for favors and they usually tell me to get fucked.”
“She probably still would.” Rafe’s gaze moved between me and Lorcan with the sharp, entertained attention of someone watching a match. “He just asked like she didn’t have a choice.”
Lorcan said nothing. He finished his coffee.
At the next table over, Aoife sat in the shade with her shoulders pulled in against the rain. Her gaze moved from Lorcan’s dry coat to my soaked sleeves to the umbrella in my white-knuckled hand. Whatever conclusion she reached thinned her mouth into a line.
Finally, the bell sounded.
The courtyard began to empty in a tide of wet jackets and sloshing runners. Lorcan stood, unhurried, and waved at his books. His bag. His packet of cigarettes and lighter.
“Carry them.”
I looked at the books. Why the little—
Awkwardly with one hand, I stooped to pick them up in front of everyone.
The rain kept falling.
“And don’t get them wet.”
I stacked his books against my chest with the ciggies and lighter on top, using my chin to hold them down, hoisted his bag over my shoulder, and shifted the umbrella higher so it covered him and his stuff as we walked.
The angle left my back completely exposed. Water ran down my hair and dripped down my spine.
He set an unhurried pace, the weight of his books growing heavier with every step. He spoke to Breezy over his shoulder. Nodded at a girl who called his name from the steps. Answered a question from Rafe about training. He never once looked at me or acknowledged that I was there.
Students parted for him. Their eyes stuck to me, landing like an additional weight.
I tried to brush off the humiliation, tried to keep my face effortless, like this was a choice I was making rather than something I was forced to do.
I hated him. God, I really fucking hated him.
By the time we reached the classroom, my arms ached and my shoes squelched.
In class, he made me take his notes while a puddle formed slowly around my chair and soaked into my socks. I stabbed the paper with my pen as I thought about everything I was going to do to him when this was over.
That night after I’d finally shut my bedroom door and peeled myself out of my wet things, my phone lit up on the bedside table.
A new contact name glowed on the screen.
My Liege.
The fury arrived so fast it blanked my vision for a full second.
Somehow, he’d gotten into my phone and changed his name in my contacts.
I opened the message.
There was only one line. One single command.
The mix of hatred and stupid anticipation sent a shiver down my spine.
My room. Now.
When I entered his bedroom, Lorcan was seated at his desk, barefoot, a pair of gray sweats sitting low on his hips, lamplight catching the hard line of his shoulders and the ink curling over his brutal body.
For a long time, he didn’t look up from the book open in front of him.
The bastard was doing it on purpose. Making me stand there. Making me wait.
I stood just inside the closed door and tried not to let it affect me. But my pulse climbed with every second of silence, hating him more with every passing moment.
When he finally closed the book and raised his eyes, his face had his usual cool, detached mask on.
He stood and crossed toward me, the firm muscles of his torso flexing as he walked, every step measured and unhurried.
I kept my eyes up and my face still and told my mutinous body to behave itself.
He stopped close enough that I had to tip my chin to hold his gaze, his violins flaring to life in my mind this time with a rough seductive edge.
Heat rolled off him, my breath catching stupidly in my throat.
The corner of his mouth lifted up.
“On your knees.”