Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)

by Brynne Weaver

And like any idiot in any horror film ever made, I follow it, stopping at the mouth of the corridor that leads to the exam rooms.

There’s a long, terrifying, heavy silence. A redtail hawk cries in the sky above, the only sound on the windswept plains.

Because the more women I meet like me, the more I believe the rules were never made with us in mind.

just a few brief moments, I realize I might have sacrificed more of myself than I bargained for with this arrangement. Because I don’t know how I’ll be able to walk away from this once it’s over. And it’s barely begun.

I’m sorry for your grandmother’s passing,” he says, though it sounds a bit like a question. “Don’t be. She’s living her best afterlife.”

“It’s okay to love your darkness and still love yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a whole one.”

Fionn presses a kiss to my hair. “Goodnight, Mayhem.”

Fionn breaks his haunted, motionless vigil. He strides toward me. And the moment his lips touch mine, I know I’ll never be the same.

stride away, my head lowered, the tears falling freely as soon as my back is turned. When I get to my bedroom, I lean against the door, sliding to the floor. My chest feels like it’s splitting open. Like I’m crumbling apart. Blowing away like ash in the wind. And I cry.

I think the pain I feel now was worth it. It hurts because it was real. It’s how I know the truth. The only one that matters.

Bentley’s responding grumble becomes a whine as I jostle him on our way down the stairs. It’s a sound that catches in my chest like a barb every single time I hear it. “And that’s the reason I never entertained vet school. I’m sorry, buddy.”

“And you can’t keep telling Barbara she has rabies. She doesn’t like that.”