8. Emile
EMILE
My stomach clenched with nerves. Despite my urbane exterior, I wanted to impress this delightful creature who’d captivated Conor and me from the first moment we’d discovered that grisly kill.
No, captivated wasn’t a strong enough word.
She’d seized our hearts with both hands and stolen them, and I feared we’d never get them back.
Not that we wanted to.
I tried to imagine the open plan safehouse from her eyes—floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a forest covered gorge that ended in a waterfall in the distance, minimalist furniture, and—
Lark sniffed and frowned from where she stood, wrapped in Conor’s arms. My stomach dropped—it wasn’t good enough. Despite my connections, despite Conor’s unimaginable wealth, despite the weeks of preparing this safe house just for her, she found something to dislike.
“Where’s the banh mi you promised?” she asked, and relief made my knees weak. I jerked my head toward the kitchen.
To my surprise, she threaded her fingers through mine, her scent soothing my nerves.
I squeezed her hand, and when she squeezed back, I let myself imagine a future with our perfect, murderous omega, a future where she wanted to be with us, not where we had to resort to kidnapping her to get a few minutes of her time.
I lifted her up onto a stool on one side of the counter, my fingers trailing over her skin as I stepped away.
“I can get up by myself,” she noted drily.
“I like touching you,” I admitted, and to my shock, her cheeks flushed. “And I think you like it when I manhandle you.”
She was small, delicate—she fit in my arms like I was made to carry her. And yet, she was deadly enough to drop alphas three times her size. The contradiction drove me wild. I adored it, adored her.
Conor slid a plate in front of her. “Bon appetit.”
“Merci,” she said with a perfect accent, then dug in.
“Tu parles francais?” I asked her, taking a seat beside her and pressing my thigh into hers, desperate for more touch from her after three months of separation.
After two years of obsession, it only took one night for me to fall completely, hopelessly for her, much like I had for Conor when he counseled me after I lost a civil case suing an abusive alpha for damages against the omega he brutalized.
He then encouraged me to pick up a knife and learn to kill to even the score.
“Mais oui,” she said, her lips curving up in amusement. “You’ve studied me for years, but you have no idea who I am, do you?”
“You’ve covered your tracks well,” Conor said, leaning over the counter and smiling at her.
“All of your money, and you still couldn’t figure it out?” Lark asked, staring him in the eyes, as if daring him to lie.
“You love it,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke his finger along the top of her hand, watching the hairs stand up as he did.
“It’s nice to be better at something than a billionaire,” she admitted, grinning.
Conor laughed. “Just one thing?”
“Several things. Many things. Most things.”
“That’s my brilliant little murderer.” He laughed, the sound colored with affection that made me want to curl up in his lap and purr.
“My parents were Pack Vandermeer,” she said, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand.
Conor’s eyes widened. “They’re—”
“Dead. They committed suicide when they lost everything to a pyramid investment scheme, a few months after I presented.”
Lark’s posture was stiff, and she looked at her plate rather than either of us. Her pain destroyed me, so I lifted her off her stool and onto my lap. Instead of protesting, she settled into my arms and rubbed her cheek on my chest, leaving her scent on my clothes.
Conor rounded the counter so he could stand beside us, each of us pressing against her, our hands stroking her skin, reassuring her, soothing her.
“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered. “I don’t need to be soothed like a child.” But she didn’t move, just sighed sweetly and nestled closer into our embrace. “A young omega, alone in the world, not a penny to her name, was easy prey for the worst of humanity,” she continued.
“What happened?” I rasped, horrified, sure I knew what she was about to tell me, a bitter parallel to what happened to my sister. Except my sister hadn’t lived to tell the tale.
“The Omega Institute matchmaker raped me,” she said softly.
“Sold me to a pack in exchange for my virginity and a bribe. Then my pack—” her voice broke and she buried her face in my chest. “My pack brutalized me,” she said softly.
“So one day I turned on the gas, lit a match, and walked the fuck away.”
Conor met my stricken gaze over her head, then leaned forward to press his forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured, and I knew the apology was for both of us.
She shrugged. “I’m happy now. I found—” She stopped abruptly and continued much slower, as if choosing her words carefully. “There’s a network of omegas like me. Birds of Prey, we call ourselves.”
“Omegas who take down asshole alphas?” Conor asked.
Lark snorted. “Unregistered omegas, so-called feral omegas, who do whatever the fuck we want, and look out for one another. We take the names of birds because we’re fucking free.” She swallowed. “We help resettle abused omegas when we need to.”
I swallowed hard. My sister could have used a helping hand when her pack abused her. Only, unlike Lark, she hadn’t escaped.
“My sister would have loved that,” I murmured. “She suffered from an abusive pack. Killed herself to escape.”
“I’m sorry,” Lark said simply, then purred, a hesitant, halting sound that gained confidence as she continued, the sweet rumble in her chest healing the gaping wound in mine. “We’re criminals first. Helping omegas is a side gig.”
“I think I met one,” I said quietly. “A woman named Wren.”
Lark’s smile was a shade unhinged. “She promised to shiv you if she didn’t like you.”
“She didn’t, so we must have passed the test,” I said, kissing her forehead.
She smiled, and it was like the fucking sun coming out. “I had to know who the men who thought they could catch and keep me were.”
“Then you know who Conor is too,” I murmured into the top of her head, as comforted by her touch as I was Conor’s.
“Yeah,” she muttered, then leaned up to kiss his jawline. “I’m sorry.”
Conor shrugged. “Poor little rich boy isn’t a persona that suits me.”
“No,” Lark laughed. “But serial killer is.”
He grinned and tipped her chin up to force her to meet his eyes. “Think that’s sexy, do you?”
“Oh, fuck off.”
But she perfumed, and I held onto that hope with both hands.