Page 63 of A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

“I’m not changing my mind.” He loosened one more breath and straddled himself on top of my hips, searching my face. I reassured him with a smile. “I’m fine. I promise.”

His weight pinned me down, and the muscles of his thighs tightened around me. His hands trembled as he grasped each of my wrists with large, calloused palms, sinking his chest and face toward mine. Our eyes locked, the chestnut brown glowed with a warmth and kindness that nobody bothered to see in him, and he seemed to be able to access the deepest parts of me just by searching my face. The invisible pull thrummed. A connection weaving together.

Everything he spent the last hour teaching me had fallen out of my head. I couldn’t think with the growing warmth building between my thighs. His gaze fell to my lips, and his nostrils flared. We both drew in a breath.

Darragh loosened his grip on one of my wrists and ran his fingertips the length of my arm, up my neck, and cupped my jaw. My skin tingled under his touch, and my back arched, wanting more of what he was offering. He ran a gentle thumb over my parted lips and lowered himself further toward me. His eyes held both warmth and agony. “Rory,” he whispered. It was a plea. A hunger. Not only for my flesh but for the most tender parts of me that I kept shrouded and buried. I would let him consume both my body and my vulnerability—I wanted him to. My hand slid up his chest and rested where his heart raced against my palm. I nodded, and my eyes fluttered closed.

A door slammed open with force. Blinding light and heat surged toward us. Fire. So much fire was about to wash over us. Darragh dropped his body fully on mine, arms wrapped around me tightly. I buried my face into his neck. “I’ve got you,” he muttered against my temple. I braced for searing pain, but it never came. The mass of intense heat was suffocating. Sweat poured from both of us. My eyes flicked past Darragh to the shimmering iridescent dome around us, the fire held mere inches away from our bodies.

As suddenly as the fire came, it dissipated into the air, the smoke from it thick and choking, the shimmering dome protecting us gone with it.

“You’re dead!” a voice roared.

A hard kick landed on Darragh's ribs, rolling him off me. Before I could process what just happened, hands grabbed my wrists and yanked me upward into a solid chest, arms locked around me. I pushed away on instinct, my trembling body doing everything I could to rid myself of the aggression touching me.

“Shh, shh. It’s alright, Rory. It’s alright. You’re safe now.” Gabriel pulled my head into his chest and turned me around, distancing me from Darragh. “Stay right here, and close your eyes,” he growled, pulling his sword from its sheath. “I finally have a reason to dispose of this abomination.”

Darragh was on his feet in a flash, the same darkness he exuded during his fight in the forest etched across his face. Veins bulged in his neck. I was more scared for Gabriel’s safety than Darragh’s.

I jumped in between them, splaying my arms out. A palm rested on each of their chests.

“No! Gabriel! Stop!” I yelled.

Gabriel’s eyes widened. “What? Rory, he was hurting you!”

“No.” I tried to say as calmly as possible. One of the three of us had to remain level-headed. “He was… training me. I asked him to.”

Gabriel still shook, and his eyes burned. I turned to Darragh, who was locked in on Gabriel. His heart still raced beneath my palm.

“Please listen. I am unharmed,” I pleaded, as much to Darragh as it was to Gabriel.

My arms dropped, and I turned to fully face Gabriel. “I was attacked…” I started, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what happened. “…in the city. Darragh saved me.”

My admission hit its mark and grabbed Gabriel’s attention. “What? By whom?” Gabriel slowly lowered his sword, and the tense lines softened on his face.

I peered over my shoulder at Darragh, who swallowed, and I turned back to Gabriel. “Some seraph tried to rob me in an alley. I was such a stupid woman and didn’t listen when Darragh told me to keep to the shop we were in. A vendor outside interested me, and I slipped past Darragh to go look, only for a moment. That’s when someone grabbed me and pinned me to the ground in an alley.”

Gabriel’s posture slackened.

“Darragh came around the corner and rescued me,” I continued, hoping to keep him at ease. “I begged Darragh to teach me how to throw a punch and toss a man off me. I was trying to learn how to protect myself…when you aren’t around, of course.”

Gabriel tugged me into a hug, and I stiffened at his invasive touch. “I’m glad you’re safe. You are so important, do you know that?”

Darragh stormed out of the sparring room, and as he left, my heart sank. I barely heard Gabriel talking as he led me down a hallway, hand placed on my lower back as always. He said something about missing me, bringing seraphs to justice, and the mention of getting to know each other more. What Gabriel had just put me through, what he did to Darragh, didn’t allow for his garbled and hollow words to resonate in me anything other than anger. I couldn’t keep my mask of nobility in place when Gabriel seemed intent on trying to rip it from my face. What lay beyond my mask was defiance and a voice he likely had never taken the time to listen to before. A woman’s voice. One in which wasn’t filled with fawning words but with gnashing teeth. I was eager to give him a verbal lashing, but I would have to hold fast to my mask and affix it back in place. However tattered and torn it may now be.

A portrait of a battle between what looked to be seraphs hung in the hallway beside the solid oak door that stood before us. I thought Gabriel would lead me back to my bedchamber to clean up and ready for dinner, but he guided me into a spacious office. A large desk with papers and books strewn about it sat in the center. Several bookshelves lined the room, and a map of Tironaill hung on the wall with different colored pins pushed through locations across the continent. Various types of weapons were displayed or encased in glass on tables.

“Sit,” he directed in an even tone, and I lowered myself into a plush leather chair with my back to the door. “Rory, I wanted to talk with you about what happened in the sparring room.” He ran his fingers through his hair and released a deep breath. “I apologize for losing my temper, but I thought he was hurting you.”

“I know,” I said delicately. “I swear to you he didn’t. I begged him to teach me after the attack. Darragh has been nothing but kind to me.”

He scoffed. “Kind? Well, that’s certainly not how most describe him.”

“Well, most are wrong, then,” I blurted more defiantly than I meant to.

Gabriel’s jaw ticked, and his hands balled into fists. “You don’t know him at all, Rory,” he growled. “He is not like us and can’t be trusted. His kindness is a ruse. A way to lower your defenses around him. Do not fall for it!”

“Not like us? You mean angheals?” I tipped my head, and my eyebrows shot up.