18. Liath
LIATH
Days blurred together inside the tower.
I started waking with cello strings humming faintly in my head as cold morning light spilled across the stone walls.
There would be fresh black violets waiting for me on the pillow beside mine.
Deargán was staying through the nights, watching me sleep before disappearing again before dawn.
I no longer pretended to sleep when he came in.
The thought left a strange hollowness inside my chest, the pity I felt for Deargán, the guilt that I had left him in the fire, tying me to him.
I should tell Lorcan.
But Lorcan was already stretched too thin between the threat of the Sons, Alistair, and Rua. If he found out Deargán had access to me here, he would go after him.
So I made the decision quietly. I would handle this alone. The secrecy settled badly inside me, like swallowing a stone.
I’d told Nuala that she couldn’t visit me again until it was all over. Too much risk. I couldn’t drag her into this. She’d protested, of course, but accepted it when I begged her. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her because of me.
So I was all alone.
The tower grew quieter with every passing day until the silence started pressing against my skin.
I spent most days curled beside the narrow tower window wearing Lorcan’s shirt, his long sleeves swallowing my hands while the collar slipped loose against my throat.
I buried my face in it, constantly trying to hold on to the smell of him. Woodsmoke, musk, and violins. Every day the scent faded, and every day the loss of it hurt more.
Below me, Ravenwood carried on. Students crossed the courtyard bundled against the cold while winter light silvered the rooftops and dead ivy rattled softly against the stone walls.
I watched all of it from above like a ghost trapped in the tower.
One day, as I took my seat at the window, movement near the fountain below caught my eye.
My heart stumbled violently when I saw Lorcan.
He stood beside the old stone fountain across the courtyard with one hand shoved into the pocket of his coat. His gaze was already on the window. On me. Like he had been waiting for me to appear.
The sight of him hit me like stepping too close to a fire after weeks in the cold, warmth rushing painfully through my chest so fast it almost stole my breath.
God, he was savagely beautiful, standing there in his dark coat while wind caught through his hair.
I missed him so much it hurt.
His mouth pulled slightly at one corner. Hello, Gray.
My fingers tightened against the stone windowsill.
He glanced once toward the courtyard around him before slipping something quickly into the curled hand of the statue.
Then he turned and walked away without looking back again.
I stayed frozen at the window long after he disappeared, my pulse still beating too hard beneath my ribs.
That night I waited until the campus emptied fully, until the last lights dimmed behind Ravenwood windows and silence settled properly over the grounds, before slipping from the tower.
Outside, cold air hit my face and I hunched down into my scarf and hood, my boots echoing too loudly against the paths.
The courtyard stretched dark and silver beneath moonlight while dead branches scraped softly against the stone buildings around me.
Every step made the sensation of being watched stronger.
I stopped once beside the archway and looked sharply back over my shoulder.
There was nothing behind me except dark windows and the fountain ahead.
I caught the whisper of a cello for a second, then the wind shifted and it was gone.
Still, unease crawled slowly across the back of my neck while I crossed the courtyard to the old fountain statue looming pale beneath the moonlight.
Only when I neared, did I really see who the figures were carved to be.
Deirdre and Naoise, locked in their final embrace.
Their legend, Ireland’s answer to Romeo and Juliet, rose up bright and awful in my mind.
Deirdre had been prophesied to grow up to be so beautiful that kings and lords would go to war over her. King Conchobhar claimed her for himself, grooming her to marry him when she came of age.
But Deirdre fell in love with Naoise, a young warrior with nothing to offer but his heart and his courage.
They ran away together, fled into exile, hiding in borrowed rooms and on wild hillsides, always one step ahead of the king’s men.
Until the king caught them and murdered Naoise.
The king forced Deirdre to marry him, and she was forced to live with the man who had murdered the love of her life. Day after day. Year after year.
Until the grief finally grew too sharp to carry, and she ended her own life, choosing death over his possession.
The weight of it pressed into my bones and I shuddered as I tried not to think of this being an omen.
A single minor chord flared from the fountain, smelling of damp stone, ivy, and the blue lotus that edged the water. Something green and round caught my eye from a crack near Deirdre’s sandaled feet.
I pulled it free and stared down at the green bead resting against my palm, smooth and cold.
Just a bead. But something inside me hesitated when I went to drop it.
I slipped it into my pocket before climbing the edge of the basin so I could reach into the hand where I’d seen Lorcan hide something earlier.
Anticipation curled tightly through me as I reached into the narrow space.
Paper brushed my fingertips and I pulled out the folded note.
My heart hammered violently while I unfolded it beneath the moonlight.
Lorcan’s scrawl stretched across the page in sharp hurried strokes.
Midnight.
That night, I crossed the library entry hall and slipped between the first row of shelves, the spot we had prearranged to meet at on our last night together, my veins thrumming.
Somewhere across the campus, the Ravenwood clock tower struck midnight.
A soft shift of air brushed the back of my neck.
I turned, a smile already stretching across my face, Lorcan’s name on my lips.
But it was not Lorcan.
Deargán stepped out from the shadows between two shelves, half of his face hidden behind his mask, his expression sharp and unreadable.
My skin went hot under my collar. My breath caught in a way it shouldn’t have caught.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed, forcing the words through a breath I could not quite catch. “Lorcan will be here any minute.”
“Good,” he said. “We can confront him together.”
My stomach tightened. “This isn’t the time.”
“Ask him,” Deargán said quietly. “Ask what the Sons made him do while he ignored you for days.”
My stomach dropped. What did they make him do? I felt myself fraying. “Please. You need to leave. If he sees you…”
He stepped closer, so close we were almost touching, his voice dropping. “I won’t hide much longer, Liath.”
For a moment I hesitated. Him watching over me in the dark these past few nights whispered of safety and history.
But then the image of Lorcan finding us like this, of him learning the truth in the worst possible way, cut through me like plunging into cold water.
I shoved him back, breath shaking out of me. “Just go,” I hissed.
For a moment I thought he might refuse. Then something flickered across his face, something that almost looked like hurt, before he dissolved into the shadows.
I watched Deargán disappear into the dark aisle, my heartbeat still tangled, my cheeks hot.
I should tell Lorcan about Deargán.
The truth sat in me like an abscess, pulsing and growing with every passing minute, a wound that only grew bigger.
But tonight was not the night to tear everything open. That was what I told myself, over and over.
I would tell Lorcan. Soon. I just needed him focused on staying alive long enough to get inside the Sons and stay there.
The library air shifted before I even saw him, a subtle change in pressure that brushed against my skin. My heart leaped before my eyes found him, traitorous in how quickly it recognized the weight of his presence.
Lorcan stepped out from between the shelves.
God, he looked wrecked. Rain clung to the ends of his hair. Bruised crescents sat under his eyes. Something wired tight wound through his posture, making him look sharper, more dangerous, and somehow more fragile.
All of it sharpened the pull inside me.
His eyes locked on mine.
For a heartbeat neither of us moved. Then he closed the distance in one rough movement, hands catching my waist, pulling me into his chest hard enough that my breath left me, his violins rising up around me.
He kissed me with a fury that knocked the air from my lungs. I kissed him back, helpless against the way he consumed me. His mouth was hot and insistent on mine, his taste of whiskey and mint flooding through me, heat rolling off his body in a slow, deliberate wave that made my pulse stumble.
Despite the things I was keeping from him, my body betrayed me instantly. Heat rushed up my spine, my breath broke, and my fingers curled in his shirt.
A growl loosened from his lips. His hand found the edge of my sweater and tugged it down, baring my breast to the library’s cold air. His mouth traced along my jaw, then down the line of my throat, each slow drag of his lips raising another shiver.
My head knocked back against the shelving. My gaze flicked upward, drawn past the rows of books to the mezzanine level that ringed the library. My skin prickled. For a split second it felt like someone stood up there, watching us from the shadows.
Lorcan’s mouth moved lower, kissing, licking, nipping me, over the rise of my chest. A small sound slipped out of me, helpless and torn between want and dread.
He grabbed the waistband of my stockings and ripped, his forearm muscles straining, veins throbbing in his neck, a deadly scowl on his handsome face. His dark glare and hands roamed my stomach, my hips, my legs.
Cold air went around my thighs, causing a shiver across my skin even as a dark heat burned inside me.
He tore off my panties, the waistband snapping at my hip and causing a sting.