Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(106)

Fionn withdraws his hand from his pocket as he lowers to one knee. Rose’s shoulders shake, the tears flowing down her skin.

“I love you, Rose Evans. I’m not letting you go. I never will.” He flips open the lid of the box in his hand. A stack of three separate rings rests inside, made to look like a sunset of orange sunstone over a sea of sapphires and blue diamonds set in hand-etched gold. “Marry me, Rose. Let me love you forever.”

Rose’s joy can’t be contained. It bursts from her in a cry and then she crashes into Fionn. He raises from his bent knee with Rose clutched in his embrace. There are tears and whispered words of love. They kiss. They laugh. And then Lark starts up a playlist as Lachlan breaks out a fresh bottle of whiskey. After a round of hugs and laughter and a toast with my family, I step away to finally get rid of my costume and scrub my skin beneath a hot shower.

When I return to the living area, the celebrations are still in full swing. I just stand back to watch for a minute. To marvel at the twists and turns that life takes. When I look a little more closely, I see the intricate pattern in the web. The map that brought us all together.

I’m watching my two brothers making up for lost time when I feel Sloane’s hand around my wrist. I lift my arm and she nestles into my side.

“Hey, Butcher,” she whispers.

“Hey, Blackbird.” I press a kiss to the crown of her head. Fionn laughs at something Lachlan says, his touch never straying from Rose as the two sit cuddled up on the couch. Sloane sighs and I look down to see a contented smile lingering on her face. “I’m going to hazard a guess that you had something to do with that,” I say as I nod in their direction.

Sloane shrugs beneath my arm. “Maybe.”

“I’m sure your partner in crime was involved?”

“You’re my partner in crime.”

“The other one.”

Sloane grins but doesn’t tear her eyes from the scene before us. “What can I say, Man-guy? Lark is a hopeless romantic.”

“Thought so.” I turn toward her, Sloane’s arms folding around my waist. I frame her face in my hands and press a kiss to her lips. “Thank you,” I whisper into her skin. “I love you, Sloane Kane.”

“I love you too, Rowan. And now that they’re occupied,” she says with a nod toward the living room, “wanna sneak away and go do karate in the garage?”

I smile down at my beautiful wife, those hazel eyes so full of love and joy, that dimple a flash of mischief next to her lip.

“I thought you’d never ask.”





EPILOGUE 2


Blade of Rage



I crouch behind the bushes and peer through the leaves, their shades of green vibrant in the morning sun that breaks through the canopy of oak and ash. The group huddles together at the edge of the rocky outcrop, taking turns with the binoculars. Lachlan and his wife, Lark. Fionn and Rose, now engaged. Rowan Kane. Sloane Sutherland, now a Kane too. I still hear her name the way Rowan called out for her the one and only time we met. Sloane. Sloane! His voice echoes in my mind in the desolate hours of night. One of the many nightmares that haunt the shadows of my room in corners where the light never seems to reach.

I glance down at the plaid shirt I’m wearing. Burnt orange. Navy blue. Buttercream squares crisscrossed with lines that have faded with time and wear. I run my fingers over the stitches I sewed into the torn fabric of the sleeve.

I’m going to give this to you but I need your help to get it off.

I lift my gaze to the group again. I’ve watched them before. Their easy interactions. Sometimes, their harder ones. A faint smile crosses my lips as I watch them whisper and laugh in hushed tones. Rowan’s skin is tainted green from that ridiculous costume he was wearing last night. But when he wraps an arm across Sloane’s shoulders and presses a kiss to her forehead before returning to his conversation with Lachlan, I can see the way she looks at him. Like he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

I had love like that once too. I had Adam.

My eyes burn with unshed tears. Most days, I’ve learned how to swallow them. How to cut them up with the blade of rage. But today? Today is always the hardest day.

Three years ago, Adam was stolen from me in a storm of screams, in the roar of a chainsaw. He died to the final notes of the maniacal laughter of a deranged killer.

I would have died too.

Yes. He killed Adam. And I promise you, Adam will be the last person Harvey Mead ever kills.

I press my eyes closed. When I open them, the group is standing, brushing off their jeans, taking sips of water from bottles, shedding extra sweaters or checking knives or tightening straps on their backpacks as they get ready to leave the escarpment for the farm hidden in the valley. The one where a murderer lives. The next monster the apex predators have come to kill.

A spike of adrenaline drives through my heart, as sharp as the ones that Rowan drove through Harvey Mead’s hands to nail him to the floor of his barn. An offering to the woman he loved. I watched, hidden in the tall grass as she came back to the barn with her injured arm held close to her side, a mummified body tucked beneath the other. She looked broken. But gleeful. Indomitable. Fucking indestructible. Not just a survivor, but a reckoning. A woman with more power than I ever imagined possible.

I could be a woman like that too.

The group starts moving away, walking in single file down the narrow path. First Lark and Lachlan. Then Rose and Fionn. Rowan goes next. Sloane is the last to leave, casting a final glance toward the farm.