Page 56 of Twisting Beauty

Their laughter faded to background noise. Across the courtyard, she sat with Nuala, her legs crossed underneath her, tearing bits of bread from her sandwich to feed the birds. A small smile kept touching her mouth, unguarded and easy, and the sight of it sat wrong in my chest.

She looked almost exactly like Rua. But everything else was wrong.

She wasn’t the girl who used to slink in the shadows to watch me.

This one pushed back when I pressed. She held my stare when she should have lowered hers. She refused to melt at my touch, even with heat rising under her skin and that pulse fluttering in her throat. She looked at me like I was the broken one.

And that… that irked me for some reason.

“Like what you see, lad?” Breezy’s voice cut through my thoughts as a jelly raspberry came flying past my head.

I tore my gaze away and scowled. “Piss off.”

“Why you staring, then?” Rafe pressed as he yanked his sweaty shirt off over his head and replaced it with a Ravenwood Hurling sweater.

“You’ve been staring all week,” Finn added quietly.

Heat crept up my neck. I made a face, keeping my voice casual. “She’s been weird since she got back. Anyone else notice?”

It sounded flippant. But my heart was thudding. I hated they’d noticed me staring. Hated even more that I’d lost focus.

I told myself it was just because I was trying to catch her out. That I was studying her.

Because that wasn’t my sister.

Breezy shrugged. “She’s always been weird.”

Finn whistled low. “Yeah, but it’s like Romania loosened her up. She’s less…” He glanced over to Rua and tilted his head. “…uptight.”

His answer only sharpened the irritation already riding under my skin because he was still trying to explain her as if she were only changed, not wrong.

Rafe let out a laugh. “Someone pulled the stick out her ass.”

“Or put one in it,” Breezy said as he ground his hips against the air. “Bet she got laid.”

Something hot spread across my chest and my teeth ground together, sharp words building in my throat.

“Still touchy about that, Lasair?” Elias fucking Montgomery leaned against the brick wall with that smug, rich-boy slouch of his. “You made me look like a prick this morning, and now I want to know why Rua is worth the tantrum.” His gaze lingered too long on her. “Can’t wait to find out.”

I shot to my feet, hurley clattering to the ground, and I faced off with Elias, ignoring the pain in my back.

“You don’t get a second warning,” I said very quietly. “You won’t so much as breathe on my sister again, or I stop being polite.”

Elias pushed off the wall and squared up to me. “I don’t give a shite if she was your dead ma,” he said, stare locked on me. “If I want her, I’ll have her.”

“Christ,” Breezy muttered. “Always knew he was an obnoxious little cunt. Didn’t realize he was such a stupid one, too.”

Rafe added, “He’ll be a dead cunt, if he doesn’t stop talking.”

I picked up my hurley, feeling the familiar weight settle into my palm like an old friend. “Say that again.”

Elias’s smirk twitched. “I said⁠—”

I slammed the bas end into the wall beside his head, concrete cracking, dust raining down like snow. Then I pressed the edge against his throat, just hard enough to make him swallow. “One more word, and I’ll drive this into your throat so deep you’ll be eating through a tube till Christmas. Go on. I fucking dare ya.”

“Alright. Enough.” Finn stepped between us, hands steady on my hurley, pushing it down. “He’s not worth it.”

Because it was Finn, loyal, levelheaded Finn, I lowered the stick. But I kept my eyes locked on Elias, daring him to have a go at me.