The rest of the warmth was sucked from her as she tilted her head to stare at me with a blank expression. Those green eyes flicked all over my face, like she was trying to measure me up. It hurt a little, for her to let me inside her body but not let me in her head… or her heart. A growing possessiveness threatened to push out all rational thought. The possibility of her rejection made me want to sink my teeth deep into the spot at the crook of her neck, where a mating bite would permanently scar and atleast force her body to acknowledge she was mine. My mouth watered at the intrusive idea.
Maybe she saw that desperation, too, because she finally sighed and propped her chin on folded hands on top of my chest again. “I’m sure you already dug into who my father is.”
I shook my head.
“Well,” she sighed, like she was weary all the way to her bones. “Ryan McGregor is not known for being a fatherly figure. Or a good husband. Or even a decent fucking person. His whole identity is being the ruthless boss of theHeathens,” Lore spat the last part as her brow pulled together. “He beat the shit out of Mom, to the point she just… disappeared when I was fifteen. We always suspected he murdered her, but I never found the proof. Taylor’s mom was a well-known mistress, and she would visit and hang out with us often. Then she… “ she hesitated, eyes shifting to the side as if she could find the right word to use on her bedside table “Left. Smart lady.”
“Wait,” I balked. “You’re thedaughterof Ryan McGregor from Heathens? Like… the boss of the largest mob in Ireland? Those Heathens?” The realization made me choke on air and started a coughing fit. I had to lean to the side and catch my breath while Lore tried to soothe me by patting my back. “Shit…” I drew the curse out. This was getting more complex by the minute. I had just fucked the daughter of a brutal mobster, estranged or not, who was, herself, a brutal mobster. It must run in the family.
Lore smothered her laugh into the back of my shoulder. “Yeah, small world, huh?”
“Wow…” I fell onto my back again, trying to gather my spiraling thoughts as I stared at the ceiling. My left wrist lifted to press against my forehead in an attempt to ground myself. The short nail of my pointer finger began to pick at my thumb until it caused a hangnail, which I continued to mess with as my anxietyrose. “I don’t know which is more shocking, who your father is or the fact that Taylor is actually younger than you.”
“By two years,” Lore’s eyes did a dramatic roll. “Not that he acknowledges that little fact. He was nineteen when he basically told Ryan to go fuck himself and rejected the position as his predecessor for the Heathens. Then he tracked me down in Vegas and hasn’t left me alone since then.”
It felt like Lore was purposely trying to omit an important chunk of this part of her past. Taylor choosing to step down from inheriting the Heathens, one of the most infamous organized crime groups in Ireland, seemed like a drastic life choice. Not that I was surprised she was overlooked for leadership; women rarely had the chance to be mob bosses, especially among the shifter population. Her brother was protective to a degree that was borderline obsessive. Adding to that the layers of fake identities and masks she hid herself behind seemed excessive just to hide from her asshole of a father. I couldn’t stop myself from looping an arm beneath Lore’s back and scooping her into a tight hug.
“Who are you really hiding from?”
As the last syllable left my lips, I knew it was a mistake. Every muscle in her body froze, and I went from holding a warm and pliant woman to a stone-cold statue carved in sharp edges. I think she even stopped breathing for a moment. Then she pushed up off my chest until she was sitting upright, eyes never leaving mine, as a pained look flashed across her pale face. As a general rule, I tried to avoid showing fear in the presence of threatening people. At this very moment in time, I fully expected to have a knife sticking out of my throat with how angry Lore looked with her unblinking stare.
“That’s… none of your feckin’ business,” her brogue came out thick and heavy with emotion and she looked away, avoiding myeyes. She wasn’t quite defensive… but more protective. Again. Like she was protecting me from whatever haunted her past.
“I want it to be my business. I wantyouto be my business.”
A low growl rumbled in her chest, my hand creeping up to palm the side of her throat and catching the vibration. Her mossy green eyes narrowed to slits. If she really wanted to get out of my reach she could, so she wasn’t trying that hard. “You are incredibly annoying, you know that?”
The snide comment brought a full-blown smile to my face. “Maybe. At least you’re aware of the fact you can’t get rid of me so easily.”
My thumb brushed along her tense jaw as I watched her face shift from frustration, to hesitation, and finally acceptance. It was kind of cute watching her brow smooth out one wrinkle at a time. When I was sure she wouldn’t rip my throat out, I reached around to pull her closer by the nape of her neck and tucked her head under my chin, wrapping her up in both arms as she settled against me. Sex with Lore was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. But this feeling of her soft skin pressed against mine, her breath fluttering across my collarbones, this sense of being whole and complete with her in my arms… it terrified me how much influence Lore had over me in the short time I’d known her. Never would I have imagined experiencing having a mate. Now I couldn’t imagine a life without her.
I would give up anyone and anything to keep Lore.
After a few moments of tense silence, something in Lore shifted. She became a little softer, loosening to let herself rest fully on top of me. I felt the soft brush of her thigh against my hip as she shifted even closer and tunneled her hands beneath my shoulders, curling her fingers to press into the skin there. My dick made a valiant effort to harden with a twitch she didn’t seem to notice. Still, I took her relaxation as a sign to settle inand reach my free hand down to pin her leg in place with a sure grip.
“Fine,” her murmur was half-muffled by my throat. “But it’s a shitty story. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Lore began to talk, haltingly at first, and then faster until it was a constant stream of consciousness. And I listened to every word until the bitter end.
Bad Memories
Lore, Twelve Years Ago
“Good evening, Father.”
I took my seat to his right, where I normally sat at the obnoxiously long dinner table, the otherseventeen seats woefully empty as usual. Mom allegedly chose this table with the hopes we would have large parties to fill it. That was before Lyria and I were born. A lot was different before we were born. When the promise of a male heir was still alive.
She never had the chance to give Ryan McGregor a son, or us a brother.
“You’re late.” His voice was gruffer than usual, his eyes never leaving his phone screen as he moved his thumb along it slowly, like he was scrolling. “Where’s your sister?”
It took a momentous effort to keep from rolling my eyes. He knew exactly where she was. “Still at school, practicing with the orchestra. Her senior showcase is coming up in a month, so she decided to stay in Dublin and practice over winter break. I left the details of her performance with your secretary.”
His secretary… Also known as the piece of ass he was screwing these days. I hardly kept track. His office was a revolving door of women teetering on high heels with their dresses barely reaching past their pussies. Father only ever married Mom and Lily—who gave him the son he wanted in Ryan Taylor McGregor II—and neither of them were out of love with the promise of loyalty. At least, not on his end. But Taylor’s mom, Lily, was smart enough to get the hell out of here and take him with her, instead of subjecting her son to the dark underbelly of the Irish mob. Taylor stayed close with Lyria and me, visiting us when he could while we were at uni in Dublin. He joked that as twins, we couldn’t be more different. Lyria was in the performing arts to be an opera singer, and I was studying computer science, on course to graduate next year. Taylor didn’t come into our lives until he was sixteen and we had just turned eighteen, but the three of us had quickly become a tight-knit family despite our shared parent being a total asshole. I knew Father was trying to lure Taylor into themob business. But he was just eighteen now, not old enough to do much beyond grunt work.
He wasn’t as knowledgeable about the dark underground as I was. The only detail that kept me from inheriting the mantle of leadership was the lack of a penis, it seemed.
I made my name in other ways, though. Father was less than thrilled about my penchant for hacking, even though he took full advantage of my skills whenever he asked me for intel on competitors or wiping evidence to thwart whatever case Interpol was trying to build against us.
