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

by Brynne Weaver

If you hit someone in the back of the head hard enough, you can pop their eyeballs right out of their face.

There are opportunities if you’re willing to venture beyond your castle walls. The land beyond might be rocky, but it’s vibrant. Take a risk. Try something new. A meaningful life is built from choices.

“You look like a TV doctor. Dr. McSpicy or something. What are your credentials?”

The one who smelled like piña colada. The one who didn’t call an ambulance despite her injury, choosing to break into my clinic instead. Who seemed surprised when I asked her if it was a motorcycle accident.

And oh holy fuck, but he’s ten times hotter than I remember from the first time we met. He’s so pretty that it almost shocks me out of the burning ache in my chest at the circus leaving me behind.

The delight is written all over his face. “Rose is my pequeño gorrión. My little sparrow. One of my best performers.”

The longer José stays, the more likely I am to feel it, that hole in my chest that I don’t think will ever truly be filled, no matter how much I try to shore up its crumbling edges.

“It’s going to be fine,” he says, nodding to my leg where it’s splinted and suspended on a foam block. “We put pearls in it.” “Pearls?” I snort a laugh. “You’re into pearling? No offense, but you don’t strike me as the type, Doc.”

“The Sparrow.” It’s a reverential prayer. The sound of hope that I’ve come to know. A secret kinship, bonded by suffering that transcends blood.

I might have been abandoned here, left in a cage. Maybe my wings have been clipped. But I can still fly.

“You’re just being sore. You’ll be back on the tour in no time,” I whisper above the clink and rattle of my crutches. “You’ll be fine on your own. You’re not afraid of the murder children. Because you’re a fierce, independent woman.”

Be tough. Be tough be tough be tough. You drive a fucking motorcycle in a metal cage in front of an audience of two hundred people in a goddamn circus. The fucking Globe

Death, for fucksakes. Don’t cry, Rose Evans. Don’t you fucking cry.

A grin slowly ignites in his full lips. “You’re not going to serial kill me in my sleep, are you?” I shake my head. “Good. Then why don’t you pack up some of your essentials and we get the fuck out of here. This place gives me Children of the Corn vibes,” he says as he looks toward the seemingly feral group of kids on the swings.

Lachlan was right. I’m knee-deep in my peak “Hallmark Sad Man Cinderwhatever” era.

Dr. McSpicy Kane.”

I shut off those thoughts before I can fall into madness. They’re vines that will twist and turn and trap me in a dangerous life I can’t escape. I’ve seen it happen. It’s in my brothers, Lachlan and Rowan. I’ve felt those same urges constrict around me. But I’ve learned to put those desires into a box where they will wither, forgotten. Starved of light.

Rose’s expression is sheepish but there’s something mischievous about it too, as though she might enjoy leaving a little chaos in her wake. “To be honest, I was relieved it wasn’t the raccoon again. Do you know how hard it is to get a codeine-addicted raccoon out of a ventilation system? Fucking hard.”

“Get you out of your Hallmark Sad Man Cinderwhatever era.”

“How’s your love life going, since you’re so invested in mine? Still fucking your way through Boston with abandon, or have you finally run out of women who will put up with your ornery attitude?”

wide. I know I’m grinning at her like a fucking fool, but I can’t seem to make myself stop. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure you have no credentials at all, and you won your stethoscope at the Duck Pond game.”

Where are we headed? I have no fucking idea. But I’m sure it will be an adventure. That’s how I have to think of it. An adventure.

I know what it’s like to hide, and I know what it’s like to be found. It can be exhilarating to be seen. And it can be terrifying to be exposed.

This belongs to a man who covered up a murder yesterday. Or, This belongs to a man who nearly bludgeoned a farmer to death with a wrench. And certainly not, This belongs to a man who killed his own father, and nobody knows it was him.

In a matter of a few days, and entirely without my realizing it, Rose has transformed a once bland and lifeless room into something that feels like a home. It leaves me with many, many questions. Such as, Where the fuck did she get all these plants? And when? How? She couldn’t have done it by herself. So who helped her? And where the fuck is she? And why does it worry me so goddamn much that she’s not here?

“Do you think this yarn will be strong enough?” I take a sip of my lemonade, trying to swallow the dread that’s crept up my throat as Sandra scrutinizes Rose’s pattern with a furrowed brow. “That depends,”

says. “What are you making,

“A sex swing.” Lemonade shoots up my nose and burns. I cough and sputter my way through what would otherwise b...

But she doesn’t feel like someone to fear. She feels like someone to trust. And that scares me.

Memories take hold in the silence. Pain dulls with time, but can still linger, waiting to be polished so it can shine once more.

What my brothers had fought so hard and so long for me to have. A perfect life. Atonement for the sin I had committed, a final twist of the key to lock my secret away. Proof that I am a good man, deserving of a good life.

Maybe I was never deserving of all the things I thought I wanted. And that key? It just never turned. And I’m starting to wonder what would happen if I just opened the door.

Loosen up, McSpicy. You’re worse than a bongo board in a blowdown.

It’s not really the kind of thing a man like me should condone. But the truth is, I love coming to these Blood Brothers fights. The split flesh to mend. A glimpse of bone. It’s raw and visceral. This is humanity at its bloody core, fights hidden in the dark.

I can’t deny how much I want her. Every day, little by little, it gets worse. Her infectious smile. Her uninhibited laugh. Her wild, unpredictable nature, as though she’s not bound by the same rules as everyone else. She’s so fucking beautiful it sometimes hurts just to look at her.

I can’t risk her. I can’t. I need some time to figure this all out. Time around something that gets me out of my own head and into the blood and guts of life.

Her head tilts. “Chill, Doc. You’re touchier than a Risley juggler with athlete’s foot.”

My blood is lava. My muscles are stone.

What are you doing? She’s your fucking patient. And you’re the most dangerous man here.

You are living a lie, she seems to say as her eyes stay fixed to mine. And if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.

“I’m her doctor, for one thing.” “Forbidden. I like it. Makes it ten times hotter.”

Rowan whispers in my ear. “You’re a dumbass, but you’re a good man. You deserve to have fun too. And I like the little banshee.”

Voices whose words are indecipherable, but the tone is unmistakable. Desire. Desperation. Demands. There’s a low chuckle. I hear the creak of the mattress through the thin walls. A moment later, there’s a loud moan from Sloane. “Fuck. My. Life,” I groan as I pull a pillow across my face. It does not stop. For hours.

What would happen if I stopped trying so hard to be a different man?

“I … I can’t offer you a relationship, Rose,” he warns. Something about his words stings deep in a hidden cavern of my heart. But why should it? It’s not as though I could stay, even if I wanted to.

a vibration that pushes me closer to an edge I’m not ready to fall over. I want to draw this pleasure out. I want to live in every moment of Fionn’s tongue lavishing my clit, of his fingers thrusting in my pussy. Of his eyes fixed to mine, dark and lethal. And then he sucks on my clit, and I lose the battle to not fall from the cliff of desire.

“God, yes. But what if you couldn’t find me?” My strokes slow. I hold her gaze. The urge to kiss her steals my breath. It takes every last thread of my restraint not to do it, and it leaves nothing else behind. Maybe she won’t see that every barrier I try to keep up has crumbled, if only for a heartbeat, when I say, “I will always find you, Rose.”

Her back bows off the bed. I quicken my pace. She calls out my name and I’m falling with her into ecstasy, keeping my touch steady on her bundle of nerves as I pull out quickly.

out, gripping my erection with my other hand as a pulse of cum shoots across her left breast. “Fuck, yes, Fionn.” I’m immediately pushing back into her. A pulse of cum spills into her pussy. I pull out again, and this time it lands on her belly. I thrust into her cunt, staying buried there, the rest of my orgasm spent inside her.

“Did I tell you that I really like being covered and filled with cum?” she asks, her eyes meeting mine with faux innocence. My cock twitches with building need. “You know, I think you might have mentioned something about that.” I thrust harder, starting to pick up a steadier pace. “But I’m a doctor. I’ll need some empirical proof before I can be sure.”