48. Liath
LIATH
Ipaused before the towering carved oak front door of Lasair Manor, heart hammering against my ribs, hands trembling.
One mistake and I was dead. Or worse.
My thumb found the charm bracelet circling my wrist, cold metal against fevered skin. My anchor. My lie.
I am Rua.
I closed my hand around my wrist, around the charm bracelet, letting the sharp edge cut into my blood pact scar with Dervla like a vow carved in flesh.
I promised her. I would not forget Dervla. I would not leave her behind.
I pushed the door, the monstrous oak panel yawning wide on creaky hinges, spilling me into a black marble and dark wood foyer like a monstrous cave.
The carved banister of the stairway circled up like a giant coiled snake around an iron chandelier hanging like an overgrown hive.
The only color was a shallow glass vase filled with blue lotus flowers that sat perfectly centered on a marble table.
The door shut behind me with a soft click that sounded like a trap snapping closed, and the gothic mansion swallowed me whole.
Somewhere deeper in the house a clock chimed once, the sound rolling through the foyer like a warning bell.
It felt as though the house had been waiting for me. Like it knew I was coming.
I started to call out, “Hello?” but caught myself, the word stuck behind my teeth. Rua wouldn’t call out.
I might be trespassing in her skin, wearing her life like an ill-fitting coat. But Rua lived here. Rua belonged.
I am Rua.
I was drawn up the stairs. To Rua’s bedroom, the only small refuge I had in here. It was upstairs. I just knew it.
The floorboards groaned beneath my boots, as if the house itself were trying to warn the Lasairs about the intruder masquerading in their daughter’s skin.
Upstairs, I walked down a hallway, the paintings watching me from tarnished gilt frames, their judgmental eyes following my movement. My boots sank into the worn runner as if the house were trying to claim my soles, to root me in place forever.
A maid appeared from a side corridor, carrying folded linens. She froze when she saw me. Then her eyes widened. “Miss Rua.”
She lowered her gaze and stepped aside so quickly the linens slipped in her arms.
Nobody here questioned the Lasair daughter.
Nobody here wanted to.
My pulse slowed half a beat. At least someone believed the lie.
I continued down the hallway, pausing as voices spilled out from behind a closed door just ahead.
I crept closer, heart thudding against my ribs. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help myself. Every instinct screamed at me to learn what I could about this place, about the people who lived here. About the danger I was walking into.
An older male voice cut through the wood like a lash, harsh and cutting.
“…scraping at the air like a soft little eejit. Do you know how ridiculous you look?”
The voice hit something buried in Rua’s memories.
Alistair.
Rua’s father.
The crack of something hitting flesh was sharp enough to make me flinch.
A muffled grunt followed, a swallowed sound of pain, the kind someone makes when they’ve learned not to fight back.
The sound pulled a shape from the fog of Rua’s memories. Or were they mine?
A towering shadow, a suffocating weight, and the glint of a gold ring as he reached out his hand.
The smell of ambergris suffocated me, clogging up my nose, triggering a sound of shattering glass.
My mind blanked, a lockbox slamming shut behind my eyes, and I was stunned for a moment, trying to resettle in my body.
I heard the footsteps coming toward me too late.
The handle jerked violently. The door burst open and someone barreled out, colliding into me before I could step back.
His shoulder struck mine with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs. My heel slipped on the antique runner, and I stumbled backward, my hands grasping blindly at air as I fought for balance.
His arm locked around my waist before I could fall and my body slammed against solid heat. He suddenly took up my vision.
Broad shoulders, the hint of ink curling up over his collar.
Dark hair falling over sharp cheekbones.
Piercing, ice-pale eyes glared out from under thick, dark brows, shadowed and lethal.
A strong jaw rough with stubble, the slightest dimple in his chin.
The boy from Rua’s drawing had been breathed into life.
No. No way.
My mind scrambled for something safer than the truth. Another hallucination. Another memory bleed. Anything but this.
Then he tightened his grip hard enough to bruise. Like he had caught something that might try to run.
The boy from Rua’s drawing was suddenly very real.
Lorcan.
His smell hit me like a drug, whiskey and wood with a hint of smoke that made my knees weak.
Then his scent-song followed, violins, a whole orchestra of them, raw and broken. A symphony carved from loneliness and pain that made my chest tight with a pity I didn’t understand.
What the fuck was he doing here?
His face this close ripped something loose inside my skull and another memory detonated.
The flash of a dark room. His voice in my ear, low and mocking. “Is this what you want, Rua? Huh? To be ruined?”
Someone’s breath hitched. Then another voice.
My voice.
No. Rua’s voice.
“Please.”
A quiet laugh against my neck.
“Oh, Rua, Rua, Rua…” he said with a dark chuckle. “What would daddy say if he found out you wanted to fuck your brother?”
The memory snapped shut like a trap.
The pieces slammed together in my skull.
Lorcan was a Lasair.
He was Alistair’s son.
Rua’s stepbrother.
Now… mine.
Mine to lie to.
Mine to fool.
Mine to survive.
Heat flooded through my body so suddenly it made me dizzy.
It was wrong. Completely bloody wrong. I wasn’t his sister by blood, but the implanted memory didn’t care. The dark, filthy taboo of it rushed through my veins like a drug.
My pulse stuttered as if it recognized him, as if my body already knew how dangerous he was.
I leaned closer anyway.
Fuck. Were these Rua’s feelings? Or mine?
My hands splayed against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart beneath my palms. His pulse raced, matching mine beat for beat.
Neither of us spoke. For a breathless moment, I forgot which girl I was supposed to be.
For a moment, something softened in his eyes. Like recognition.
Then it vanished.
His gaze dragged slowly over my face, studying me. It paused on my mouth. Dropped to my throat. Then to my hand still pressed flat against his chest.
His grip tightened around my waist. He still hadn’t let go.
His brow furrowed as he searched my face again. Then his eyes hardened. And his fingers dug deeper into my waist.
His dark gravelly voice sent shivers through me.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Liath will never know what really happened to her during her “missing time".
But you can.
Read her missing Chapter 2.
And get an exclusive “forgotten” spicy MFM scene during one of her therapy sessions.