Epilogue #2
Taylor flipped me off just as I turned and followed Lore up the stairs into her office, where she was still intently typing on the phone.
It was uncharacteristic of her to be so focused on something.
I hadn’t set foot in the Masked Merrow’s office since first coming to look for the club’s owner, and seeing Lore sit where Jerel had really brought it around full circle for me.
It felt so unreal, me standing here with a mate bond and matching marks to show for it.
I think I knew the first time we met, deep down, that we were meant for each other.
It took longer for Lore to come around than I’d liked, but the warm feeling of acceptance and love I felt being with her and the Riot more than made up for the lost time.
She seemed too distracted to notice I was looming in front of the desk, staring down at her like a love-struck idiot for a couple of minutes.
“What’s going on?” I kept my voice low to not startle her.
Lore sighed and tossed her phone carelessly across the desktop, sending it sliding dangerously close to the edge.
Before the screen went dark I glimpsed the wallpaper; it was the one Lore took of me the day she broke into Andrea’s condo, while I stood horrified in the doorway with my bushy fox ears pricked upward.
Seeing it on her phone made me want to cringe a little.
I’m sure it brought her no little amount of joy to see me in such a vulnerable state, the damn sadist she was.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and pushed back in the chair, tilting her head to glare at the ceiling. “Just dealing with some bullshit. You know, the usual.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Her green eyes glared at some spot on the ceiling like it offended her, before she sighed again.
I walked around the desk, stopping behind her chair and placing my hands firmly on her shoulders.
My fingers dug into the tense muscles there, kneading them out bit by bit until a soft moan left her lips and Lore’s eyes slid closed.
“Hmm?” I prompted. It was a rare moment I got to look at her this closely—even in bed—to be able to admire the cute sprinkle of freckles across her nose and eyes. As if feeling my stare on her, Lore opened her eyes to look at me upside-down and smirked.
“You can take the underboss out of the mob, but you can’t take the mob out of the underboss, huh?” She joked lightly.
I shrugged. “I don’t think I was taken out… more like, transplanted to another mob.”
She laughed again and reached up to pinch my cheek. The hand slid around the back of my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. The angle was a bit awkward until she tilted her head to fit against mine. I could feel my lips pull into a smile, and I bent lower to wrap my arms around her chest.
“You’re avoiding the question,” I pulled away just long enough to say. “What’s going on? Is there something with your sister?”
“Not directly,” she hedged. “With me killing off Elio, there’s the unavoidable squabbling of who’s taking over his empire, who’s coming after me for blood, blah, blah, blah.
The new head of the family is his only surviving son, Lucio, and he wants to arrange a meeting while Lyre is in town.
I had forgotten until now the dates conflicted, so I’m trying to talk her out of coming the exact days he’s here. ”
“I imagine that’s going well.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like trying to talk to a feckin’ brick wall.
For better or worse, she’s loyal to a fault.
Lyre doesn’t need to be gettin’ all mixed up in this.
I owe her that much. I’m assuming Lucio wants to meet before the Assembly meeting in a couple of months, to try and smooth over the bullshit he dad pulled. ”
Her voice was straining at the end, and I could see her swallow hard, like she was trying to shove the emotion back down.
Sometimes, I was envious of the kind of relationships she had with her siblings.
Lore and Taylor were so tight they could practically be conjoined, so I was curious to meet her actual twin.
“What’s Elio’s other son like?” I was hesitant to ask.
Lore scoffed. “Nothing like his piece of shit father, if that’s what you’re asking.
He’s actually in the music biz too. Same genre as Lyre and everything.
” Despite the obvious tension in her shoulders, she chuckled low.
“Heaven forbid they step foot in the same room, though. He’s a cocky little shit now, and Lyre can’t stand him. ”
“So they, what, run in the same circles because of their music careers?” I was confused as to why her sister would have any interaction with Elio’s son at all.
“This might shock you, but Elio and our shitty excuse for a father are actually good friends. Or,” a twisted smirk lit her face, “they used to be good friends. We met at a lot of holiday events put on by the rich and obnoxious. Lyre and Lucio were pretty close until…” Her expression darkened.
It made sense to me now why she always wore the mask or a full-face helmet when she dealt with people she didn’t trust. Lore’s face told a range of emotions at any given moment.
“Speaking of your sister,” I began, the annoyance from earlier bubbling to the top of the other emotions. “What the hell is up with using her name as a safeword? Is there something I need to know?”
Lore’s eyes widened like she was confused. “Huh?” Then it seemed like she got up to speed with the sharp turn of our conversation. Maybe she didn’t even remember. “Ah, you mean for the livestream? You’re bringing that up now?”
“When else am I supposed to bring it up?” I threw my hands in the air, exasperated. “So?”
Her eyes rolled, and she leaned over to yank open one of the drawers in her desk and root around for something. Lore was not giving this the sincerity it needed. “So, what? I thought it was a good idea at the moment. Next time I’ll pick something weird like ‘banana’. Happy?”
“Not really! How do you not think that’s just… wrong?”
“Well, it wasn’t like I was going to be screaming my twin’s name during sex,” Lore said it so casually, all I could do was stare at her in disbelief. “That would be feckin’ weird,” she finished.
“Lore, that defeats the whole purpose of a safeword!” I tried to respond calmly.
It was getting increasingly difficult as she pulled out a damn piece of gum and beamed while she unwrapped it.
“It’s supposed to be something you’re willing to say if you get uncomfortable!
Ergo, it should be a word you’re willing to say!
” A headache was starting to bloom behind my forehead.
I tried to rub it away with my fingertips pressed firmly against it, and tried some calming breaths.
And a few seconds of closing my eyes and centering myself.
Really, anything I could do to keep from getting too worked up.
It was dumb, but this felt important. “Can you just… promise me you’ll be more honest?
And can we pick something else for a safeword when we… play?”
The stare she set on my face made me squirm, not because I was uncomfortable, but because she was more observant than a lot of people gave her credit for.
“Puppy,” she began, knowing what her pet name did to me.
I could already feel a flush creep up my neck to heat my face.
She tried to spin the chair around to face me fully, but I held onto the back to keep her still.
I didn’t expect her to grab my wrists and yank them off, whipping around to wrap her legs around my knees so that I couldn’t escape.
Lore looked up at me with such a soft, caring look that made a radiating warmth fill my chest. “Hey, I’m sorry.
” She shook my hands still in her grip. “If it’s a big deal for you, we’ll pick something else for safewords.
You know I’m allergic to being serious about, like, literally everything. ”
I chuckled, still a little uneasy with her sincerity. “It wasn’t a big deal, I didn’t mean to–”
Lore yanked me off-balance, and I nearly fell right on her.
Her arms wrapped around my waist, and she loosened her legs so I could straddle her on the chair.
I immediately braced myself to keep the majority of my weight off her lap.
“Anything you think is important is important to me. And so are you.”
I could feel the smile stretch my lips and take over my entire personality.
Maybe Lore was batshit crazy. Maybe she was impulsive and unhinged and the most unserious person I’d met in my life.
But as she wrapped her hands around my biceps and pulled me low for a devouring, minty kiss, I couldn’t imagine myself connected to anyone else on such a fundamental level like we were.
She was more than I could have ever hoped to catch from this fox hunt.