Page 30 of Claiming Pretty

A bitter lump rose in my throat, but I pushed it down. I couldn’t let Lisa see how deep this ran, how far I’d been dragged into the darkness surrounding these men. I nodded mutely, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from saying too much.

“And Cormac?” Lisa continued, her gaze cutting into me. “He’s missing too.”

My blood turned cold, and an image flashed unbidden in my mind: Ty, his face blank and unflinching as he slashed Cormac’s throat. The memory made me feel sick, and it took everything I had not to flinch.

“I—I didn’t know that,” I lied, my voice barely steady. The words tasted bitter on my tongue, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. Not about Ty. Not about what happened that night.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lisa. I did. With my life.

But trusting her and protecting her were two very different things.

And if Lisa knew too much—if she got caught in the crosshairs of everything that was happening—she would become a target. Just like I had.

When I finished talking, a heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the muffled sound of arguing from outside the door.

“They’re still going at it,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes toward the door. She jumped up and pressed her ear to it, her face scrunching in concentration. “Arguing… about you.”

I let out a tired sigh and sank back against the mattress. Of course they were.

Lisa raised a perfectly arched eyebrow as she flopped back beside me, her red hair spilling over the pillow. “If you’re having kinky three-way sex with those two dark gods,” she said with absolute seriousness, “and you don’t give me every explicit detail, you’re dead to me, bish.”

Before I could protest, she jabbed a finger into my side boob, hard enough to make me wince. “Do you hear me?”

“No three ways,” I groaned, shoving her hand away. “I’mwithCiaran.”

Lisa blinked in surprise, then tilted her head. “I thought you were with Ty?”

“I was never with—” I started, but the words died as memories surged forward unbidden.

Ty’s tongue tracing every inch of my skin, the heat of his mouth, the way his cock felt splitting me open.

My thighs clenched involuntarily, and my face flamed as I tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear.

“I was neverin a relationshipwith Ty,” I said, my voice quieter.

Lisa narrowed her eyes, studying me with a blunt judgmental look that only a best friend could get away with.

“You know he’s in love with you, right?” she said.

I flushed harder.

“He loves me like a friend,” I lied, my voice cracking under the weight of the words. “He’s my childhood best friend.”

Lisa snorted, loud and disbelieving. “Girl, have you seen the way he looks at you? Like you hung the moon and stars. Like no other woman even exists. His body turns toward you as you move around the room. Even when you’re not paying attention.”

My chest tightened. Lisa’s words struck deeper than I wanted to admit.

“I don’t want to hurt either of them,” I said softly, almost to myself.

“You’re going to hurt one of them the second you choose,” Lisa said, her voice gentler now. “That’s how this works.”

“Ihavechosen,” I said, the words coming out more defensive than I meant. “I chose Ciaran.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow, her silence stretching until it felt like she could see straight through me. “Have you, though? Really?”

“Yes,” I insisted, forcing myself to meet her gaze.

My heart echoed the truth in my words, but deep in my soul, a tiny traitorous seed of doubt sprouted.

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