43. Lorcan
LORCAN
As the lecture hall filled up before class, I kept my body angled toward the doors and my hand on Liath’s thigh under the desk.
I hadn’t stopped watching for threats since the camera cracked under my heel. Hadn’t left her side.
I glanced at her, flipping her notepad to a blank page.
The only issue now was, how did I keep her protected while I went hunting for the plague doctor?
“Eyes on me.”
Liath’s body locked beside me, her thigh going rigid under my hand, her breathing seizing.
My gaze snapped to the front where our new teacher stood.
Tall. Salt-and-pepper hair. Those same dark eyes that I recognized from under the plague doctor mask.
The man who had planted the camera.
It’s him.
It’s fucking him.
He was here for her.
No. I wouldn’t let him take her. No matter how much she might care for him.
I turned to her, but the affection I thought I’d see was absent.
The color drained out of her face so fast it felt like watching a light go out, her features going slack before she locked them down again, but it was too late to hide her shock.
Her gaze cut to mine. Our eyes locked.
For a fraction of a second, something flickered across her face that didn’t belong there. Fear. Fear of what?
Of me? Of what I might do next? Or what I might do to him?
She should be scared. The man I was going to hunt at Magdalene tonight had walked into my classroom. My prey had come to me.
And a dark part of me had woken at the sight of him, teeth bared, answering like it had just been called to war.
I settled back in my seat and studied my target.
“I am Dr. Bron Deargán,” he said. “I’ll be taking over.”
Bron Deargán.
I’d heard that name before. I couldn’t place where.
He turned to the board and wrote across it in chalk.
Pathophysiology of Dependency and Control.
The class around me settled into note-taking. Pens scraping. Paper shuffling.
I didn’t move.
He turned back to face us, his eyes finding her instantly. As if he had any right to look at her.
I bristled, my fingers flinching on her thigh.
Beside me, Liath’s hand covered mine. Like she was trying to hold me down. To hold me back.
“Rua Lasair,” he called out.
Liath’s body went rigid beside me.
“Tell me,” he said to her. “What is the pathology when a subject begins to sympathize with the very enemy who threatens them?”
He looked at me when he said enemy. Held it long enough that there was no ambiguity.
I was the enemy.
I narrowed my eyes. The man at the lectern hated me. Personally.
The name surfaced a little further. Bron Deargán. Enemy of the Lasairs. But why?
“Is it illness of the mind,” he continued, “or weakness of the will?”
“I…” Liath managed. “I…”
I’d watched her pivot on a dime, improvise through her panic. I’d watched her composure hold through Alistair’s worst. She wasn’t holding it now.
Whoever he was to her, he did something to her that no one else did.
“What’s the matter, Rua?” Deargán’s voice cut through the silence she couldn’t fill. “Have you lost your mind? Or just your tongue?”
A ripple of uneasy laughter moved through the class.
I stiffened as I turned my glare toward him. Bastard. I would make him pay for that.
I gave her thigh a gentle reassuring squeeze. I’m here, Gray. I won’t let him near you.
Her shoulders relaxed a little, her breath coming out in a rush as her fingers squeezed my hand back.
Something dislodged in my chest.
Finally, she found her voice. “Identification with the aggressor. It’s a survival mechanism.”
But her voice was stilted, her response dressed up in clinical language. She’d done it with Alistair too.
“Survival.” Deargán let the word hang. “Interesting. Does that absolve her betrayal to her enemy’s victims?”
“I…” Her voice faltered.
I glanced between them, trying to read their hidden conversation. What was he talking about? What victims?
Deargán stepped down from the lectern and started up the center aisle toward our row, his steps heavy and slow.
My shoulders tensed as he neared, my fingers twitching. She pressed down on my hand as if that alone could keep me at bay.
“It’s a simple question, Miss Lasair,” he said, anger slipping out in his tone. “When the enemy sits beside you, what do you offer him? Your survival… or surrender?”
He stopped right by her elbow, looming over her.
I was on my feet before I’d realized what I’d done, Liath’s hand slipping from mine as I stepped between him and her.
“Back up off her,” I warned.
In my periphery, I sensed the room’s attention pivoting on me.
Deargán lifted his gaze to me, a sneer on his face as if I disgusted him. “I wasn’t addressing you, boy.”
I switched to Russian. “I know who you are, Mikhailov.” I practically spat his fake name in his face. “Now, back off before I teach you what happens to men who put their hands where they don’t belong.”
His eyes moved over me, taking in my stance. The fists at my sides. The angle of my body, planted between him and her.
“Such vehemence,” he said. “Such violent attachment to your sister. Protective instinct, perhaps?” He paused. “Or… a toxic pathology.”
A low uneasy ripple drifted through the class.
I lifted a finger into his face. “You—”
“Sit down, Mr. Lasair,” he interrupted as though my threats bored him. “Powell’s notes suggest you’re already skimming the edge of failure. I doubt your father will forgive another disgrace.”
The flashback hit before I could brace.
“You have let her become your weakness. Pathetic.”
The crack of my ma’s violin breaking across my back. The pieces of it, of her, scattering on the floor. Alistair standing over me with the snapped neck still in his hand.
“Let me show you how easy it is to control you now. From now on, whatever punishment you earn, she will take.”
I slammed back into my body in that damned lecture hall.
If I stayed standing, my father would hear about it, and he would hurt her.
Sitting was the best protection I could give her.
My body fought me on the way down, knees locking against the shame, spine resisting, every muscle wanting to lunge back up and slam a fist into his face. I fought against it all and sat anyway.
“I thought so,” Deargán said. Only then did he turn and walk back to the front of the class.
Her hand found mine. The squeeze she gave me was different, steadier. I’m here.
I wove my fingers between hers, something lightening in my chest. She was here with me and nothing else mattered.
“Now, Miss Lasair,” Deargán called out from lectern, his voice level. “Answer the question.”
She took in a deep breath and lifted her chin. “It’s only a betrayal,” she said, “if you are right and he is truly your enemy. But what if he is not?”
Her grip tightened on my fingers.
She was defending me.
Defending me to the man she cared about. The man she’d made promises to before me.
I answered her with a slow brush of my thumb along the side of her hand.
Across the room, pain flashed behind Deargán’s eyes for a second before it was gone.
“Careful, Miss Lasair,” he said. “Forgetting who your enemy is always has a cost.”
He turned to the board, picked up the chalk, and started writing again.
The class returned to taking notes.
He was talking about something but I wasn’t hearing him.
Because his name surfaced again. Bron Deargán. I’d heard it spoken before.
Bron. Stop!
A woman’s voice.
Then it hit me.
I remember him.