Page 36 of The Temptation of Roan Island

My mouth drops open. An unsettling flutter stirs to life in my core.

“Yes,” I rasp, needing space, feeling for the doorknob behind me.

“Wait,” Shemaiah says before I open the door. He reaches up to pull some of my hair from the bun, scraping his fingers against my scalp in the process.

Because he wants them to think…

Oh.

I open the door, and we tumble from the closet, Shemaiah grabbing hold of me to keep me on my feet. When I turn, my backside presses to his front, and I wish I’d worn one of the bustled dresses the maid put out for me instead of my simple green frock. Every person in the room watches us with rapt attention.

My eyes immediately find Jafeth, who’s smirking, and my cheeks warm.

“I wonder if we’ll have to listen to them too,” Zarah says without looking up from her plate where she’s arranged her food into a pattern only she can discern.

Noah clears his throat at his sister’s criticism.

My muscles tense with embarrassment, and that unwanted desire from earlier flares back with vehement force. I look at the floor.

Anna makes a horrible scoffing noise. I don’t blame her. She just wants to survive, and the window has dwindled to just Jafeth. Considering what I caught him doing with Lucy the morning after the last new moon party, Anna’s chances are slim.

I can’t look at her. In fact, I can’t meet anyone’s gaze. I disengage from Shemaiah’s touch and hurry from the room.

Someone calls after me. The quiet rumble of Shemaiah’s voice is followed by footsteps, but I don’t turn around.

He catches up and takes hold of my elbow. “This way.”

“What are you doing?” I yank my arm away from his touch.

“We have to talk.”

“Isn’t that what we just did in the closet?”

“There’s more to discuss.”

I suppose that’s true, but I need space. From him.

He takes my hand and pulls me through the halls. When I think we’ll stop in the library, we don’t. Instead, he bypasses our normal spot, cutting through rooms, turning down hallways, slipping through corridors I haven’t yet explored.

“Where are you taking me?”

“We need privacy.” He hurries me through a gallery where grim-faced figures watch us as we pass until we come to a giant painting at the end of the hall.

“Is that Zarah?” I ask.

“Yes.” He opens the painting like a door, and pulls me inside a passageway, closing it behind us.

“What is this?” I ask, finding myself in another dark enclosed space. “I can’t see.”

“I can,” he says. “Trust me.”

I want to say I don’t trust him. He has all the power. He could hurt me in so many different ways. And now he’s asking me to lie for him, to pretend to be in a relationship with him. It’s my past coming back to haunt me in the present. Another lie. Another relationship that isn’t real. My emotions are all over the place, and I’m feeling things I shouldn’t, things he isn’t. But I keep hold of his hand, because it’s so much better than the weeks without him.

We descend a set of stairs into the darkness. It spirals down and down until suddenly my stomach flips over on itself, and I’m upside down, but I’m not.

“What was that?” I ask.

“We’re in the Gate House,” he answers as if I’m supposed to know what that means. “It’s the under house.”