Page 149 of Twisting Beauty

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.