Page 115 of Twisting Beauty

Shit. If he pushed this, they were going to shoot him.

Lorcan’s arm stayed tight around my body, his knife still out, his jaw set.

“Please,” I whispered into his shirt. “I couldn’t stand it if they hurt you.”

For one painful moment, he didn’t move.

His arm didn’t loosen. But the knife came down.

Alistair’s laugh broke the silence first, warm and easy, as if nothing more dramatic than a spilled drink had occurred. “Forgive my son. He is very protective of his little sister.”

The tension in the room exhaled in increments. Not all the way. There was still something coiled and waiting in the men nearest us, a readiness that hadn’t fully stood down.

But a glass lifted. The conversation restarted. The girls drifted back into service like someone had wound them up and set them down again.

Lorcan put his knife away.

From somewhere behind me, I overheard, “…is he a Son?”

“Not yet.”

The phrase snagged in my head. I knew those words. But I wasn’t sure where and why they niggled at me.

I shoved it down with everything else. The hand up my skirt, Lorcan’s threatening knife, the click of the gun. Down, down, down. I could fall apart later.

Lorcan looked me over, checking for damage. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…”

Across the room, Deargán was slipping out a side door.

What the fuck was he doing?

“I’m grand.” I stepped away from Lorcan. Or at least I tried to.

His arm tightened around my waist and pulled me in closer. “You stay near me.”

Shit. His grip was too tight to shake without making a scene.

I hated myself for the low blow I was about to make. But I couldn’t let Deargán run loose in this house. He was going to get himself killed.

I shoved at his chest as I hissed. “You don’t get to play protector now, Lorcan. Not after last night. Save it for someone stupid enough to believe you mean it.”

His glare turned lethal. But he let me go.

I didn’t wait for him to answer. Didn’t wait for the guilt to catch up. I moved into the crowd before he could close the distance and I did not look back.

I slipped out the side door and into the servants’ hallway after Deargán.

The air here was cooler, the space dimmer. The wood panels gave way to plain plaster and narrower walls that held the smell of polish, starch, and old dust. I hurried along it until it spilled out into a small winding staircase that curled toward the upper floors.

I spotted a flash of a long cloak and a hook mask upstairs moving toward the bedrooms.

Where the fuck was he going?

He was going to get himself caught.

Upstairs, the noise of the party dropped to a heartbeat under the floorboards. I thought I lost him as I crept along the hallway. Until I turned the corner and found him coming out of my bedroom.