Page 141 of Twisting Beauty

“Lorcan—”

“Alistair isn’t covert enough for that.” I held her gaze. “If he wanted to know what you were doing, he’d torture it out of you. This was someone else.”

The question sat between us, pressing into the silence.

She chewed her bottom lip, her gaze fixed anywhere but on me.

She knew more than she was saying. She knew who it was.

And she was choosing not to give him to me.

Suspicion formed in my mind.

The dark eyes through the slits of the mask. The salt-and-pepper hair. The dropped accent.

I’d caught them outside her bedroom.

He’d been inside her room.

She had protected him. Just like she was protecting him now.

The realization settled sharp and cold like a blade, cutting deeper than it should have.

“The plague doctor.” I turned to her, my voice going quiet. “Who is he?”

She wouldn’t look at me.

I crossed to her in two steps. My hand slipped around her and found the back of her neck, drawing her in against me, no room between us, her face inches from mine.

I did not give her the option of distance, and I did not pretend I was going to.

“Gray.” It came out low, a warning.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

You can’t trust her. She’s already hiding things from you. I forced my father’s voice down, but the tension stayed, coiled tight and waiting for a reason to snap.

“Why are you protecting him?”

She swallowed, but she still would not look at me.

I nodded toward the broken plastic. “He’s spying on you.”

Her mouth parted, but no answer came. The silence stretched too long.

“Why do you trust him?” My voice sharpened. “He obviously doesn’t trust you.”

My grip tightened at the back of her neck, not enough to hurt, but enough to make it clear she was not walking away from this.

She was not walking away from me.

“Gray, I need to know.”

“I can’t,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I made him promises before you.”

The silence that followed pressed in on me, heavy with what she had just admitted. Had I already lost her before I’d started fighting for her?

She tried to pull back from me, but I stopped her, my hold on her tightening.