Page 27 of Love the Way You Lion
Not today. Not ever.
Unease coils tighter in my belly, the possibilities of what Sari might concoct sending shivers down my spine. She hasn’t abandoned her dark designs; that much is clear. And those so-called friends of hers, the cackling crones who echo her madness—they’re surely huddled together this very moment, concocting something vile.
I stop at the window, staring out into the darkening sky, the fading light mirroring the dimming of my peace of mind. What revenge is she plotting? What horrid scheme are they stitching together in the shadows?
A sigh escapes my lips as I turn away from the glass, the chill of the evening seeping through the pane. The thought of Sari’s retribution hangs over me like a specter, invisible yet palpable. Whatever it is, I know one thing for certain—it’s not cast off. It’s brewing, bubbling under the surface, waiting for the right moment to erupt.
Walking to the fireplace, I pick up a frame that’s face down on the mantel. I brush my fingers against the photo of Wilde and me, the memory stinging fresh like a wound that refuses to heal. Wilde’s death was a tragedy, and we mourned.
Goddess, did we mourn.
Even after all the bad things that happened these past few months, his absence is a hollow ache that throbs with every beat of my heart.A mate dying should hit you hard—I know it’s supposed to—but reality isn’t some cinematic arc where grief can just be neatly resolved or undone.
“Maybe we should cancel the party,” I say to myself, my voice barely loud enough to carry over the silence that has settled around me. It hangs there, like a fragile bubble ready to burst.
That was something I said to Sari as well, but she simply snorted and brushed me off. Her opinion is that it won’t be weird to have a huge BDSM party mere weeks after someone in the community died, and I wonder how it couldnotbe weird. But there are larger concerns—our community could use something that will let them have fun, and our parties always lead to that.
But it’s just so dour around town and I don’t want to ruin Rafe’s birthday because we didn’t take him into account.
I don’t see how in any universe everything would be better by the time the party happens. The thought itself feels like an insult to Wilde’s memory, a mockery of the loss we’re still nursing. Yet Sari seems hell-bent on this path, convinced that spending time with her mate amidst a crowd will somehow ease the pain.
That’s when I tried to tell her how on guard everyone will be. Wilde’s accident still seems unreal in this place where the amazing happens all day every day. I’ve noticed even the gear-heads have slowed down their antics since someone who shouldn’t have been able to die was in a fatal car wreck.
Of course, clones and droids alike are watching their mates like hawks and neither I nor Rafe are exempt from that overprotectiveness.
Sari said it would be fine and we’d all hop from place to place, visiting and doing what people always do to prep for our parties.Hide-and-seek, secret rendezvous, and all the typical prank war stuff would cheer people up, in her opinion.
“Seriously?”My eyebrows arch in disbelief.“You think Taurus is going to let me out of his sight in that kind of chaos? And Talia—she’s got her claws out for anyone who even glances at her new mate.”I shuddered at the thought of the potential bloodshed.
Her snarky replies are a distant echo as I picture the scenario unfold—a grotesque masquerade of forced merriment, while shadows lurk beneath our feet. I finally relented, knowing full well I’d rather face the wrath of a party gone sideways than the cold, creeping dread of what Sari might do in her desperation.
The thought of the upcoming social disaster doesn’t sit well, but it’s a risk I’ll have to take.
Better the devil you can see, I suppose, than the one plotting your downfall behind closed doors.
My fingers tremble slightly as I fumble with the buttons on my blouse while I work to calm my frayed nerves. The fabric feels heavy, tainted by the weight of our conversation, and I’m desperate to shed it like a second skin. Clothes pool around my ankles, and I step out of the heap, feeling lighter, almost unburdened.
The cool air brushes against my bare skin, a welcome contrast to the stifling atmosphere that had clung to me since the meeting. I yank one of Taurus’s shirts from the hook behind the door, the familiar scent of him—a mix of pine and something indefinably wild—wrapping around me like an embrace. I slip into it, finding comfort in the way it hangs loose and long on my frame.
I can’t let her consume every moment, every thought.
My resolve hardens; I need something, anything, to divert this torrent of frustration before it consumes me entirely. The last thingI want is for Taurus to come home to this storm cloud hanging over us.
Glass clinks as I pour myself a drink, the amber liquid promising a temporary reprieve. Drink in hand, I summon the binder with a flick of my wrist, the magic pulling it through the space between where it lays in my closet at the Maison to here, now, landing with a soft thud on the bed.
The binder opens with a whisper, and I flip through the pages, each one a meticulously organized parade of outfits. Skimming past corsets, masks, and feathers, I search for inspiration, for some spark that might ignite a sense of anticipation for the party rather than dread.
At least this won’t make me want to stab myself in the eye balls.
Outfits blur together, sequins and silk vying for attention, but it’s all just background noise to the cacophony in my head. Still, I force myself to focus on the task, to drown out the echoes of Sari’s words with the quiet rustle of pages turning under my fingertips.
It’s a small victory, but it’s mine.
Flipping through the binder, I can’t help but let out a sigh. It couldn’t hurt to lose myself in this mini-universe of fabric and fantasy, even if just for an hour or two. The pages fan out before me, each tab a gateway to memories of wild nights and the warm buzz of laughter.
I linger on a page, fingertips grazing over the glossy photo of a crimson corset paired with a raven-feathered mask. Rafe really outdid himself with this system. After a few parties where we’d dug through piles of costumes like scavengers at a feast, he came up with a brilliant plan. We would sort, catalog, and store our entire myriad of costumes and accessories in tabbed binders.
Hex built the basement vault. Then he and Rafe spent six weeks making the seven binders full of items. They annotated outfits with accessories, locations, hair accessories, and shoes. Everything is cross-referenced and organized down to the last sequin.
