37. Liath
LIATH
Iwoke with the phantom vibration of a cello humming against my teeth. I ran my tongue over my lower lip, frowning at the faint tang of salt clinging to my skin. I scrubbed the back of my hand over my mouth, a strange, heavy flush pooling in my stomach that made absolutely no sense.
I walked to my next session with my steps echoing softly along the floor, steady, measured, Rua’s pace, Rua’s posture, Rua’s calm.
But on the inside, smugness sat warm in my chest.
The memory of our last session rose again before I could tamp it down. Deargán beneath me. Heat trapped between my thighs. His breath changing when I kissed him, slow and controlled until it wasn’t. The moment he cracked, when his hands dug into my ass, his thick erection undeniable against me.
A small, satisfied smile threatened at the corner of my mouth. I smoothed it away with a careful breath.
Rua didn’t smile about winning. Rua didn’t play.
But I did.
I had taken his control and turned the experiment back on him.
Shite. What if I pushed too far? What if I’d been too clever? Too aware.
My smugness soured.
Rua submitted to therapy. Rua broke.
I exhaled slowly and let Rua’s stillness settle over my face like a mask.
It’d be grand. He’d leave me alone today. Or he would shove me back into group and pretend it had never happened. Men like Deargán did not enjoy losing control. Especially to a woman.
I faltered as I turned the corner and found Deargán standing outside the closed therapy room door.
One shoulder rested lightly against the stone wall. His hands were folded neatly behind his back. The corridor lamp cast a thin line of light across his cheekbone and left the rest of him in shadow.
He watched me approach. Not a trace of annoyance on his features. Not a hint of embarrassment. The quiet confidence in his posture sent a small ripple of unease through my stomach.
I stopped a few steps away.
“Doctor.” My voice came out in Rua’s soft and respectful voice.
Deargán straightened slowly. “Miss Lasair.”
His gaze lingered on my face a moment too long. Then he held his arm out for me to walk.
“Today’s session will take place elsewhere.”
He led me down a narrow corridor I hadn’t been down before, our footsteps echoing through the empty passage. The lighting grew dimmer with each turn, the air cooler, the smell of dust and metal getting stronger.
Stone walls replaced the wallpaper of the main ward. Old iron pipes ran along the ceiling. The deeper we went, the more the building morphed, like a predator finally showing its true colors.
We stopped before a barred gate that stretched across the entire hallway like a black spiderweb from hell, iron twisted into cruel shapes, a relic like from some forgotten dungeon.
Deargán reached into his pocket, drawing out a heavy iron key from a chain that glinted like a shackle. The clink of metal teeth sliding into the lock echoed down the corridor.
“What is this place?” The question scraped out of my throat, thin and brittle.
“This part of the ward was designed for practical work,” he said as he pushed open the gate with a warning creak. “A kind of real-world exposure therapy.”
I shivered beneath his gaze. In the frigid air, the cotton of my dress clung to my skin, far too thin to be the armor I needed. I cursed myself for not bringing a sweater. Anything to feel less exposed.
His fingers skimmed up the length of my bare arm, a touch that sent my nerves sparking, my skin pebbling beneath the glide of his hand. “You should have dressed warmer, Rua.”
His knuckles grazed my jaw, tilting my chin up, his touch soft but unyielding, as though I were something fragile he was deciding whether to keep or break.
“Too delicate for this place,” he murmured, the edges of his voice frayed with something close to fondness. “But I’ll toughen you up.”
And then, as if to mock the chill his touch left behind, he slipped his white coat from his shoulders and draped it across mine. Warmth bled into me, unwelcome and cloying. The scent of him, cello and musk, dark and resonant, swelled in my head, his song vibrating low and persistent in my mind.
“After you,” Deargán said, stepping aside, gesturing toward the door he’d unlocked, his gentleman’s courtesy marred by the glint in his eye. “Wouldn’t want you to fall behind.”
I should have refused, should have demanded he take me back to the safety of his office, where the walls were lined with books instead of iron bars.
But Rua would not question him.
Rua would follow.
I folded my hands loosely in front of me and walked forward. Even as tension tightened along my spine. Even as everything in me screamed to turn back.
He stopped at another door, older than the rest, the paint worn near the handle from use that hadn’t happened in years. He slid the key in, turned it, and the lock clicked with a finality that made my mouth go dry.
“We’ll be conducting today’s session here.”
He pushed open the door.
The room waited, dim and sprawling, its shadows alive with too many shapes.
I bit back the dread that surged inside me and stepped through.
The scent hit first, dust and cold stone, a faint trace of citrus.
Then the shapes of the room settled into focus. A huge dark wood poster bed, fitted with black sheets, stood against the wall. A tall wooden wardrobe in the corner. Damask wallpaper curling slightly at the seams, the exact shade of blood, was covered in gold-framed paintings.
At the same time, memories flashed behind my eyes like superimposed photographs.
No, not memories. These images had been implanted. Constructed memories. Part of Deargán’s work.
It was Rua’s bedroom.
A perfect replica, down to the heavy furniture, but it felt utterly sterile. Devoid of breath or life.
It wasn’t a bedroom; it was a museum exhibit built by a madman.
Deargán closed the door behind me with a quiet click.
I let out a gasp, playing up Rua’s astonishment.
“It’s my room,” I said, soft and breathy. “You recreated it exactly.”
Deargán didn’t answer. His gaze drifted deliberately to the heavy blackwood desk in the corner.
On it sat art supplies, a leather art journal, charcoal stubs.
Then I saw the diary sitting next to them. Purple leather with a gold clasp.
My breath caught sharp and involuntary.
The memory of nights writing in it flooded my chest so fast my vision blurred, late hours under a dim lamp, ink staining my fingertips, words spilling across the page when I thought I was losing my mind.
My body moved before my mind did, one step. Then another. My fingers lifted toward the cover.
Toward my diary.
Then instinct slammed into me.
Rua would not know this diary.
My hand froze in the air.
The room went very still.
Slowly, I turned my head.
Deargán was watching me like a man watching prey falling into a trap.
Shite. I had picked the wrong item.
Rua would have gone straight for the art supplies.
I let my hand fall slowly back to my side and tilted my head toward the desk as if I was studying the objects for the first time.
“The room is correct,” I said carefully, letting my gaze drift over the charcoal, the journal, then the diary.
“But that,” I added, pointing toward the purple leather, “I don’t recognize.”
Deargán stepped closer.
Close enough that the spice and musk clinging to his coat reached my nose, a small warning note of a cello vibrating in my ears, close enough that his heat pressed into the space between us.
“No?” His hand moved past my shoulder and landed on the diary.
I forced myself not to move. Not to react.
Even as he lifted it slowly, then opened it, the gold clasp clicking open, the purple leather falling open in his hands.
Deargán tilted his head. “You’re certain?”
Pages whispered as he flipped through them.
He turned the diary toward me.
A messy scrawl in purple ink stared back, a page I’d written during one of the first nights I started losing time and convinced myself I was going mad.
His eyes never left my face.
“Strange,” he said softly. “Because it seems very personal.”
His thumb brushed down the page like he owned it.
Like he owned the thoughts written there.
My thoughts.
Bastard.
Each of his deliberate movements felt obscene, every brush of his fingers across the pages, every graze of his gaze across the ink was a violation.
Those pages held things I never said aloud, fear and doubt and rage, the secret parts of me I kept tucked in tight where no one could reach.
And now he was exposing them. Touching them. Stealing my secrets. Violating the sanctity of my mind.
He studied my face carefully, waiting, measuring, enjoying the moment as my inner most sacred part lay open in his hands.
And I couldn’t stop him.