Page 14 of Twisting Beauty

Alistair lifted his glass. “To family reunions.”

I lifted my own glass and drank, the wine souring in my mouth.

We were no family.

We were monster. Heir. Imposter.

We were players in a lethal chess game, and I had just taken my seat at the board.

Every answer from here on had to do two things at once. Survive the moment. Keep the cover intact.

“So.” Alistair set his glass down with a soft click that carried in the silence. “Tell me about the therapy regimen they used on you at Magdalene.”

My fork paused midair, lamb juice dripping back onto the plate.

This wasn’t just fatherly interest. This was a test. He expected to know what had been done to his daughter.

Magdalene was a place that reported to him, that answered to him, that would have given him chapter and verse on anything done under its roof.

If I said the wrong thing, I was done for.

“Ah,” I said. “Experimental.”

He blinked once. “That’s vague.”

“CBT.” I set my fork down carefully, pulling therapies from my Darkmoor studies. “With layered hypnotherapy.” Each syllable measured, each word placed. Like I was crossing a bridge I wasn’t sure would hold.

His brow furrowed. “I don’t recall signing off on any such plan for you.” He picked up his knife. “Who administered it?”

My throat went dry. Christ. What had I walked into?

“Um. Doctor…”

Deargán had been clear. Don’t use his name. But my mind was scrambling through the handful of names I’d absorbed from Rua’s memories, trying to find one that would hold under pressure, that wouldn’t unravel the second Alistair made a phone call.

“Doctor who?” He cut into the lamb, his knife sliding through the pink flesh with unhurried precision. The signet ring on his right hand caught the candlelight as he moved.

I stared at it.

The ring was old heavy gold, an S engraved in the center, encircled with a C.

Michael Byrne wore a ring like that. Had worn it my whole life, on the same hand. His had been different, a snake curled into the shape of an S, but the weight of it, the statement of it was the same.

These weren’t coincidental. These were connected. I just didn’t know how yet.

The cold that moved through me wasn’t Rua’s fear. It was mine.

“Rua?” Alistair’s hand reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

The touch was terribly gentle, fingers that touched me with practiced ease as if they had every right.

I recoiled, the flinch starting at my spine and moving outward. I caught it just barely, converting it into a slight shift of my shoulders, a tilt of my head as if I were simply adjusting.

Across the table, Lorcan had gone very still.

“Fenton,” I blurted.

I knew immediately, from the particular quality of Alistair’s pause, that it had landed wrong.