Page 53 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

“W-what are you doin’?” I’m surprised to find it’s not me who asks this. Behind me, Finlay stares at Rory with wide green eyes, watching him as though this is the last thing he expected.

Rory neatly folds his sweater and places it by his side. “A new moon is a purge of the old. It’s the point in the moon cycle when the moon’s power is at its peak. It’s a chance to renew power, appease the gods. It’s a cleansing, a rebirth, an intention for the future.”

“And whit intention are ye currently tryin’ tae set?” Finlay asks, his voice tight, his eyes never leaving Rory.

Rory slowly unbuttons his crisp white shirt, the hint of a smile gracing his lips. “Unity.”

And so we watch Rory — elegant, arrogant Rory, with his sweep of caramel-colored hair and his expensive taste in fashion — slide his shirt down his shoulders.

It feels like the world is tilting, or that I’m tilting toward the world. Where there’d been peaceful, natural silence in my ears, now there’s a harsh, frenzied ringing. My breath is a mess, stopping at the sight of Rory and starting only when I remember that air is vital for my lungs.

“I’m no’ daein’ some ritual forunity,” Finlay manages to mutter, though it’s with some difficulty as he has to look away from Rory to say anything remotely coherent. I understand the feeling.

And now I understand this.

Finlay and I. We’re alike. We’re almost too alike, differing only in our biology. Almost more important than that is that we share an overriding quality: we’d do anything, literally anything, for Rory Munro. And now Rory wants us for this. A midnight ritual under the moonlight. Because we can’t say no to him.

“I mean unity betweenus, not nations.” It’s strange, Rory managing to sound so haughty when he’s half-naked before the two of us. But why would his own nakedness give him an iota of humility, of vulnerability?

He’s a jerk who knows his worth. And right now he stands like a god.

Moonlight sculpts his body, shadows carving ridges across his flat stomach. His skin is painted alabaster, a lightness that seems ethereal in the midnight magic of tonight. He stands with his hands secure on his hips, his biceps firm and swollen, his mouth a pretty pink pout and his hair falling into sharp eyes.

He looks like a classical statue. The kind so pure and beautiful it’s stuffed inside a museum for visitors to pay to weep at its feet.

My throat is parched. I’ve forgotten basic human functions — how to swallow, how to blink, how to breathe. But that’s okay, because I’m pretty sure I’m dead anyway for any of this to be happening. This is Heaven, right? I actually made it to Heaven?

Rory peels off his leather brogues, discarding them neatly beside his shirt. He then switches his gaze between me and Finlay, landing finally on me. “Strip.”

It brings me back to dancing in his dorm, him telling me to shed my school uniform in front of five very different boys. The same persuasive sway he held over me then is here now. Before I can stop myself, I find my fingers traveling to the column of buttons along the front of my denim sundress, and slowly I free each one by one.

He’s seen me naked. He’s seen me come. What’s one more thing, one more part of me, for Rory to possess?

I know Finlay’s next to me because I feel the current of air as his head whips around to watch me undress. But aside from that, he fades into the background. I’m Rory’s, and I always have been. It’s as though I’m entranced, enchanted, to conform to Rory’s wishes.

Is this what love is? Infatuation? Lust?

Because sometimes it feels so vast and endless that I don’t think my small, finite heart can keep hold of it.

“Sassenach,” Finlay murmurs, oddly pained. “Ye dinnae have tae dae this.”

I look Rory firmly in the eyes. “I want to.”

And I do. There’s a cloak around this area of the grounds, as though we may have fallen into a world that doesn’t really exist, a world out of time. This isn’treallyRory and it isn’t me, either. It’s a dream world, a creation of my own mind, my fantasies made flesh — of Rory instructing me and me pleasing him, of Finlay here beside us, awaiting his turn.

But if I were to fantasize about Finlay, it wouldn’t bethisFinlay. The one staring at me half in horror, half in sorrow.

It’s the one thing that gives me pause.

Rory slides his gaze over to him, concern pinching at his brows. “Well?”

“Well, whit?” There’s the hint of a growl to Finlay’s low voice, and it makes the hair on the backs of my arms stand on end.

“Doesn’t she look beautiful? My girlfriend? Isn’t she wonderful?”

I finish undoing my buttons, bending for the last one and raising the hem of my dress, though my fingers fumble when I hear this from Rory. I give another dry swallow, my heart hammering like there’s a desperate guest outside of it wanting entry.

Finlay’s face twists deeper into pain. “Are ye tryin’ tae punish me?” he whispers, voice flecked with a dangerous, bitter edge. “Because ye’ve succeeded. I get it. I understand noo. She’s yours. You win.”

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