Page 150 of Twisting Beauty

Beside me, Liath’s hand covered mine. Like she was trying to hold me down. To hold me back.

“Rua Lasair,” he called out.

Liath’s body went rigid beside me.

“Tell me,” he said to her. “What is the pathology when a subject begins to sympathize with the very enemy who threatens them?”

He looked at me when he said enemy. Held it long enough that there was no ambiguity.

I was the enemy.

I narrowed my eyes. The man at the lectern hated me. Personally.

The name surfaced a little further. Bron Deargán. Enemy of the Lasairs. But why?

“Is it illness of the mind,” he continued, “or weakness of the will?”

“I…” Liath managed. “I…”

I’d watched her pivot on a dime, improvise through her panic. I’d watched her composure hold through Alistair’s worst. She wasn’t holding it now.

Whoever he was to her, he did something to her that no one else did.

“What’s the matter, Rua?” Deargán’s voice cut through the silence she couldn’t fill. “Have you lost your mind? Or just your tongue?”

A ripple of uneasy laughter moved through the class.

I stiffened as I turned my glare toward him. Bastard. I would make him pay for that.

I gave her thigh a gentle reassuring squeeze. I’m here, Gray. I won’t let him near you.

Her shoulders relaxed a little, her breath coming out in a rush as her fingers squeezed my hand back.

Something dislodged in my chest.

Finally, she found her voice. “Identification with the aggressor. It’s a survival mechanism.”

But her voice was stilted, her response dressed up in clinical language. She’d done it with Alistair too.

“Survival.” Deargán let the word hang. “Interesting. Does that absolve her betrayal to her enemy’s victims?”

“I…” Her voice faltered.

I glanced between them, trying to read their hidden conversation. What was he talking about? What victims?

Deargán stepped down from the lectern and started up the center aisle toward our row, his steps heavy and slow.

My shoulders tensed as he neared, my fingers twitching. She pressed down on my hand as if that alone could keep me at bay.

“It’s a simple question, Miss Lasair,” he said, anger slipping out in his tone. “When the enemy sits beside you, what do you offer him? Your survival… or surrender?”

He stopped right by her elbow, looming over her.

I was on my feet before I’d realized what I’d done, Liath’s hand slipping from mine as I stepped between him and her.

“Back up off her,” I warned.

In my periphery, I sensed the room’s attention pivoting on me.