Page 50 of Twisting Beauty

He moved to the far bookcase, pressed something at the right-hand edge, and a section of the wall swung inward.

A secret room!

My eyes widened and I repressed a gasp. I could sense Lorcan staring at me, noting the change in my expression, and I schooled my features as much as I could.

Alistair stepped through the door. Light came on inside. Through the gap I could see what looked like a lamp-lit second study with a large desk, papers, files spread flat and stacked. His coat moved in and out of view as he worked, unhurried.

It felt like forever before he reappeared, stepping back into the bedroom and closing the panel shut behind him, flush with the bookcase.

He crossed toward the door. His feet passed within half a foot of the fabric on the floor.

Thank God he didn’t pause. He didn’t look down.

Moments later, the door clicked shut. His footsteps faded down the corridor.

Lorcan stayed pressed against me and I stayed where I was because my legs would have folded if he’d stepped away too soon.

In my mind, I fixed every detail in place: the bookcase, some sort of mechanism at the right-hand edge, the hidden room, the desk, the files.

I had to get back in there alone.

But first I had to survive Lorcan.

Lorcan stepped back as if I burned him. He grabbed my wrist and yanked me out from behind the drapes, me still clutching the bundle of ruined fabric to my chest. He crossed the bedroom, cracked the door, checked the corridor, and pulled me through. The door clicked shut behind us.

Only when we were out of the forbidden ward did he turn to face me.

For a moment he said nothing, his shoulders heaving as he took in large heavy breaths.

But I understood. We were bonded in some fucked-up way now. A terse truce not to speak of this to Alistair or to anyone. Or it’d be both our heads.

Before he walked away, he thrust a finger into my face, and the promise he made would haunt me for days.

“I’m watching you. Everything you think you’re hiding. I will expose it.”

The Ravenwood girl’s bathroom was a labyrinth of stone walls, with separate sections for showers, toilets, and a changing area with lockers complete with a wall of mirrors.

I walked past the shower stalls toward the toilets. The tang of body spray clung to the air like a curse, thick and cheap, mingled with acetone and that sharp, bitter sting of disinfectant.

I halted as a too-familiar voice cut through the tiled corridor from the changing area.

“I have the greatest goss on that gothic freak.”

Aoife’s voice rang out, syrupy with self-satisfaction, her voice curling like a noose around my neck.

Shit. She was talking about me.

I peered around the corner, heart beating faster.

Aoife stood flanked by her two lapdogs, Ciara and Emer, huddled close to the mirror, blotting their cheeks, swiping gloss over lips that were already slick and pouty.

“Get this…” Aoife’s eyes flashed in the mirror, and the girls around her leaned in before she had even spoken, hungry for blood dressed up as gossip. “Rua wasn’t in Romania on exchange.”

Emer screwed up her face. “Why would they say she was, then?”

Aoife’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction. “Because she was hiding a shameful secret.”

Mascara wands froze midair. “What?”