enemies to lovers, it's my favourite trope {lionel x ines}

INES IZAR

I name them Larsen and Lonora.

Admittedly, they’re not the most original of names. The inspiration had come from history. Larsen, for the hard-shelled creature that had followed me through the blizzard all day. He hasn’t left my side – I don’t think he’s going to. It reminds me of the past I can’t escape, even after a name change ten years in the making. Larsen is the girl from the orphanage; Larsen is the bodyguard putting his steel heart in my hand adoringly.

Lonora is something different. She is elusive, magnetic, flying just out of reach. Nekane never talked much about her family. I learnt a lot of the Izar history myself – from following Vasco’s presidential campaigns to stalking Yani until I had the courage to approach her myself. But the sisters she has no pictures of and the parents she says divorced when she was just a little girl evade me. Lonora is the grandmother I adopted. Someone that could be fictional – I know I’ll never meet her, even if she wasn’t already long gone – but reality is never as it seems. The beautiful beast in front of me lets me sit on her back as we pad softly through the woods. I trust her guidance better than I trust my own.

I guess it’s only natural for like to call to like. I’m not surprised to see another fowl like Lonora at the edge of the wood we’ve padded into. They greet each other like best friends – maybe something more, if the way my heart skips a beat at the sight of their reunion is anything to go by. I’m glad she has a companion to navigate the Arena with. That she’ll have someone to keep her company when I no longer can.

It’s too bad for the guy on the other side of the forest.

“Jesus. You look awful.” Lionel’s face splits into a shit-eating grin, and I see the blood-red of his gums blend into the bruises that are already blossoming across his face.

I shouldn’t provoke him – God knows what he’s gone through this morning, how unstable and potentially bloodthirsty for revenge he might be right now. But he had scared me half to death only a few days ago. It felt fitting that he got a taste of his own medicine.

“And yet. Still an improvement.”