Page 166 of Twisting Beauty

Lorcan shouldered a defender out of his line and the man went down hard. The ref blew a long whistle. Lorcan put a hand up in sorry but kept moving.

“One monster’s life,” Deargán said, “for the lives of all those girls.”

For one sick second, I saw the monster on the field, beautiful and brutal, raised to hurt, taught to take. The monster who’d tied me to a balcony in a straitjacket and taunted me. The monster who’d drugged me with a kiss. The monster who had held a knife to my throat the first time we ever spoke.

For one moment, the trade balanced. One of him. For all the girls in the ward. For the girl at Alistair’s drinks evening with her dress askew and her eyes wide and glassy. For Bridgit.

For Dervla.

Then it tipped over because behind the brutal monster was the one I’d come to care about. The boy who had held me without taking anything. Who’d defied his father in front of a room full of men for me. The boy who had let his father destroy the thing most precious to him to save me.

Across the field, Lorcan looked up, his eyes finding mine. They shifted to Deargán beside me. Then dropped to Deargán’s hand on my knee.

He flinched, his face cracking, exposing the raw wound underneath, like a boy who had just had his worst suspicion confirmed.

He thought I had been seduced.

He thought I was choosing.

He did not know, could not know, that the man beside me had just asked me to engineer his death.

This was one more thing that I had to keep from him. One more thing tearing us apart.

A defender came at him from the side. Lorcan turned into him without looking away from me. His hurley caught the man clean across his helmet. The crack of it carried up the bleachers. The man’s head snapped sideways and he hit the grass hard, blood already coming out of his face by the time he landed, staying down as still as death.

The ref blew his whistle. People were shouting at Lorcan from the sideline. The medic was sprinting in.

Lorcan stood over him; his eyes had not left mine.

“Your choice, Liath.”

I lose Dervla.

Or I lose him.

How was I supposed to choose?

From across the field, Lorcan was looking at me like I had already betrayed him.

46

LORCAN

Deargán’s hand was on her fucking knee.

He leaned into her, his mouth at her ear, feeding her God knows what, poisoning her against me.

Her eyes flared wide as they locked on mine, guilt flashing across her face.

I had been winning. I didn’t give a shite now.

Rage tore through my chest. He was taking her from me right in front of me. She was slipping out of my hands by inches and I could not stop it.

A defender came at me from the side.

Fury exploded out of me, a crack carrying up the bleachers, and he went face down in the grass before I knew what I had done.

The ref was already running toward me, whistle blowing, his arm sweeping flat to send me off.