Page 168 of Twisting Beauty

The flicker of her looking at me was so brief I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching for it.

“Maybe later.” She moved past me.

I caught her at her bedroom door, my hand grasping for her waist. I drew her against me and put my mouth on hers.

I kissed her like I was drowning and she was air. I kissed her like I could pull her back to me, my mouth devouring hers, demanding a spark to burn away the cold creeping in.

She stiffened, her body taut as a bowstring, and I feared she’d push me away.

Then she softened, melting into me, her lips yielding. But even as she kissed me back, something was missing. There was a distance that hollowed the kiss. It was like pressing my mouth to a memory of her, and the emptiness bled fear into my veins.

I pulled back and looked at her.

She would not meet my eye.

“Liath—”

“I’m tired, Lorcan.”

She turned her handle and slid through the door.

The wood pressed gently against my shoulder as it closed and the latch clicked with the small definitive finality of a coffin lid.

This was his fault. He was feeding her lies. Poisoning her mind. And I wanted his blood for it.

I needed a monster to take down a monster.

Outside Alistair’s study, I stared at the closed door, eyes dragging over the wood swirls as if my answer was contained within them.

Something in me warned that if I brought this fight to Alistair, I could not take it back. The thought sat heavy, a lead weight in my chest, keeping me rooted to the spot.

Fuck. I turned and walked away, getting only partway down the corridor before I turned on my heel and returned.

This time I got as far as placing my hand on the door handle, the brass cold under my fingers. I did not turn it.

Deargán was dangerous. He’d tried to kill me. He’d killed my grandfather.

What if Liath refused him and he turned on her?

I had to tell Alistair. He was the only one who could get Deargán arrested and sent away again.

I could leak Deargán’s criminal record to the dean, but that would send him away from Ravenwood, not keep him from her.

Alistair was the only one who could get rid of him for good.

Before I could turn the handle, the door opened from the inside.

Alistair stood scowling at me, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a glass in his hand, the faint medicinal sweetness of absinthe rolling out of the room with him. “For God’s sake, son. In or out. I haven’t all night.”

My face went hot as I walked in, the Persian rug swallowing my footsteps. The stuffed animal heads watched me from their rows above the shelving, glass eyes catching the low firelight.

He returned to his chair and sat, sipping his drink.

He waited.

“There’s a new psych professor at Ravenwood,” I said. “Goes by Bron Deargán.”

Alistair’s hand stopped moving, his eyes sharpening. The room got colder by some invisible degree. “Is that so.”