Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #1)

by Brynne Weaver

I could so easily lean down and inhale her scent. I could kiss her. Run my hand into her raven hair. Tell her I think she’s brilliant, and cunning, and so fucking beautiful. That I have fun with her. That even though I feel like complete shit right now, I’m disappointed this year’s game is nearly over, because I hate watching her walk away. What we have now? It’s not enough. I want more.

I know her typical process and her next moves. She’ll notch a precise cut into his jugular with a single strike and then leave him to bleed out in his chair. The final slash of color in her perfect canvas.

A devastatingly beautiful smile creeps across her lips as she leans close to his ear. “I love the sound when my victims beg too.”

Sloane doesn’t make a sound as she creeps closer to her prey. She moves like an owl in flight, fluid and silent and graceful. Predatory and powerful.

An electric charge surrounds us. The aroma of hot blood perfumes the air. Candlelight flickers on the web. Every detail sharpens, as though the universe has narrowed to this single room. And Sloane the goddess of chaos at the heart of it all.

When I halt at her side, she looks up at me with a grimace, her nose crinkling, a little spattering of blood dotting her cheek like a crimson echo of her natural freckles. If I could, I would tattoo it right into her skin. Fucking adorable.

“More boobs.” “Seriously?” “More. Boobs.”

“Go big or go home, Sloaney!” Lark chimes through the laptop speaker. “Boobs!”

“One hundred percent. Hair down. Do some old Hollywood waves. Gold star! Two gold stars! One for each boob.”

“I need more to go on than just tits.” “You have murder too, he likes that.”

“Boobs plus murder don’t equal a relationship, Lark. That math ain’t mathin.’ ”

“I don’t know if what I have to offer compares to all that, you know?”

Felt

“You had to find comfort in being alone because you’ve had no choice. But as much as you like it, you’re also lonely,”

When he stops within reach, his eyes flow over every inch of my body, unabashedly drinking me in. I feel his gaze everywhere it touches.

“You look …” He shakes his head. Swallows. Shifts on his feet. “You look gorgeous, Blackbird. I’m so happy you’re here.”

“What’s wrong with a Honda Accord?” I ask as a flurry of butterflies dances across my rib cage. “I drive one.” Rowan scoffs and rolls his eyes. “No, you don’t. You drive a silver BMW 3 Series.” “Stalker.” “You’re overdue for an oil change, by the way.”

I guarantee that you could wear a potato sack and still be the most beautiful woman here. The dress is stunning, Blackbird. Perfectly you.”

And throughout dinner he continues to check in even though we’re sitting right next to one another, with a smile or a glance or a single finger that glides over the inside of my wrist.

When his name is called, he goes on stage and collects his glass teardrop trophy for Best Restaurant during the awards ceremony and even then he finds me with a wink and a lopsided grin.

His grip on my chin firms and he steps closer, looming over me, his eyes bouncing between mine. “Sloane,” he whispers. “You’re really here.”

His hand folds over the back of my neck and he presses a kiss to my forehead. The touch echoes long after his lips are gone.

“Are you sure he’s in there?” Maniacal laughter and a man’s piercing scream precede the growl of a chainsaw that starts up inside the house. “Pretty sure, yep.”

He stares right into me. I glare back into the abyss of his dark eyes. And then I spit in his fuck-ugly face.

A flash of lightning illuminates Rowan’s face, searing it into my memory forever. His lips are parted and I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath as his gaze snares on my misshapen shoulder and missing shirt. His features are anguish and fury painted in light and rain. Beautiful and haunting and terrifying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He presses his forehead to my stomach, his arms wrapping around my legs to hold me close.

“Sloane,” he says, his eyes soldered to my lips. My name is a whisper of salvation and suffering as he says it again. A thick swallow catches in Rowan’s throat. “I can’t lose you.”

“What are you doing?” I hiss. Rowan rests the handle of the ax against his shoulder and huffs before giving me a wink. “Getting revenge for hurting my girl, of course.”

Rowan stands over him and tightens his grip on the handle of the ax. Rage and focus sharpen the features of his beautiful face.

I jostle the corpse’s head around as Harvey screams and squirms. The dentures fall out of her mouth to land on his face and he enters another dimension of fear. “Oops, my bad.”

Lol

“Did he just have a heart attack?” Rowan asks. He stops by Harvey’s unmoving head to stare down at his bloodied face. My shoulders fall with disappointment. “This is so uncool, Harvey.” “You literally scared him to death. You should be proud.”

When I look at her, I can’t seem to pry one emotion away from the others. They all intertwine when I think of Sloane Sutherland. Fear is fused with hope. Care with control, with envy, with sadness. It’s fucking everything, all at once. Even the desire to turn this feeling off locks with the need to nurture it. The totality of it devours me.

Every time I think of her, my heart reminds me I’m not as dead on the inside as I thought after all.

“What? I think you’re beautiful. Like some kind of vicious, battle-hardened goddess of vengeance.”

“Rowan—” “It’s not that bad, once you get used to it.” “Get used to it? There’s a fucking boot print on my face.”

“Blackb—” “Don’t you Blackbird me. That can-can motherfucker stamped my fucking forehead. I can even see the Carhartt logo on it,”

I wipe one of her tears away with my thumb. Her lip wobbles and I want to simultaneously laugh and burn the world until I find a way to resurrect that arsehole so she can kill him again.

“Great. Then I knife you in the balls.” “Yeah? Hobble over here and try it,” I snarl. I try to poke her with the rubber end of the crutch but Sloane bats it away.

She turns enough to give me one sad-puppy eye. The longer she stares at me, the more my resolve crumbles. Her lower lip juts out in a pout, and even though it might be fake, I know I’m a fucking goner.

Sloane’s hummingbird pulse sets my blood on fire, her faint ginger scent marred by sweat and blood and her lingering fear. I wonder if she realizes how easily I could crush her delicate windpipe. I wonder if she thinks about how she’s caught in the grip of a killer who is just as deadly as she is.

Flushed and flustered Sloane might just be my favorite version of her yet.

I see the body on the floor. The artistic director of Ashborne Collegiate Institute. And my one wish is that he’d rise from the afterlife so I could do it all over again.

When he approaches, he stops behind me, the weight of his gaze so heavy on my reflection that I can feel it through the glass. “Beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful to me,” Rowan says. He reaches from behind me to chase the tear from my skin with his thumb.

The next pass of his caress follows the swoop of the bruise beneath my eye. “That color right there, how many things can you think of that are that color? It’s rare.”

“I have an eggplant face. That’s basically a dick face. A mushy dick face with a Carhartt logo.”

“You’re all the best things to me, Sloane. No matter how many bruises are in your heart or on your skin.”

My flesh is a mess of scratches and bruises, all the marks darker and more obvious than they were hours ago. His gaze drifts over every inch of my exposed skin as though I’m something precious yet damaged, a broken revelation.

“Something caught your eye, pretty boy?” I whisper. “Yes,” he says, his voice pained. “God, yes, Sloane. All of you.”

“I need to get my shit together,” he mutters, his voice low and gritty, the words not meant for me. He holds out a hand for me and I take it. “Come on. Into the bath before I fucking die.”

When I take my first step in, I glance up, expecting to catch him focused on the details of my body. But he’s not. His eyes are on mine, a crease notched between his brows as though this whole experience is excruciating.