Page 165 of Twisting Beauty

Beside me, Nuala straightened. “Is that the new psych prof? Why’s he⁠—”

He sat down on my other side. Close enough that the wool of his coat brushed mine. Close enough that the scent of clove and pepper reached me before the cello started low under my ribs and his cognac taste flickered up at the back of my tongue.

I swallowed the last of my chocolate bar, getting it stuck in my throat.

Lorcan was at the corner now, shouting something at Finn, his arm raised.

I could feel Deargán’s stare burning into my profile.

Nuala had gone still on my other side, reading the silence between us. She cleared her throat. “I’m gonna grab us coffees. Back in a sec.”

She gave me a tiny look as she went. Giving you space.

No, don’t. I reached for her sleeve just as Deargán’s hand landed flat on my knee, pinning me down.

But she was already too far away, threading between knees and coffee cups, lifting a hand to wave at someone she knew.

He leaned in, his voice pitched only for me under the noise of the crowd. “I told you there was a way to end this.”

The cello dropped lower under my ribs. His other hand came up and brushed a piece of hair back from my temple slowly before trailing down to the line of my jaw.

Then Deargán’s mouth was at my ear. “You convince him you love him. You get him to name you as his heir.”

I stopped breathing.

On the field, Lorcan had possession of the sliotar, soloing it on his hurley as he sprinted for the goal, three men closing in on him.

“Then,” Deargán said, “he dies.”

“No,” tore out of me.

Deargán didn’t react, he just kept talking. “We don’t actually have to kill him. We just make it look like we did. An accident. I’ll handle it. I have places to hide him away. I’ll make sure he’s comfortable.”

Christ. Was he really suggesting this?

On the field, Lorcan smacked the sliotar into the back of the net. A roar went up around us, but it sounded like it came from underwater.

Deargán didn’t even glance at the field. “You’d control the asylum. The girls walk free. Dervla walks free.”

“And you get to take away the only two things Alistair loves,” I said bitterly.

Deargán shrugged, like it hadn’t even occurred to him. “See? We all win.”

My right hand was at my left palm, my thumb rubbing at the scar Dervla and I had carved into each other at the asylum.

I won’t forget you.

If I refused him, the girls in the Special Ward stayed sedated, hands of strangers all over them. Maeve’s death stayed unavenged. I failed Dervla.

If I accepted, Lorcan would have to “die.” He would believe I had loved him before I betrayed him. He would know I had used him. That I had made that choice. It’d destroy him.

Deargán had not offered me a plan. He had offered me two unbearable sentences.

“We’re out of options,” he said softly. “And we’re running out of time.”

Lorcan was running again, his head up and his jaw was set.

Deargán squeezed my knee. “Look at him,” he murmured. “He has violence in his blood.”