Butcher & Blackbird: The Ruinous Love Trilogy

ROWAN

“What are you doing?” Fionn asks as he wanders into my room, a carrot snapping in the grip of his molars. “Going on a trip?”

I roll my eyes and gesture to the carrot. “What the hell. Is this a new phase in your Crossfit indoctrination, walking around with raw root vegetables?”

“Beta carotene, motherfucker. Antioxidants. I’m helping my body eliminate free radicals.”

“Take a vitamin. You look like a douche.”

“To answer your question, Dr. Kane, Rowan is going on a little hunting expedition with a like-minded soul,” Lachlan chimes in as he drops into one of the leather armchairs in the corner of the room. “But in true Rowan style, he’s decided to make it into a competition. He roped me into finding some suitable prey that would be enough of a surprise for both of them. So, essentially, he’s going to have his ass handed to him like the little bitch masochist he is.”

I shoot Lachlan a death glare but he just smirks over the lip of his glass, taking a long sip of bourbon as he taps a silver ring against the crystal edge.

“Where?” Fionn asks.

“West Virginia.”

“…Why?”

Lachlan barks a laugh. “I’d say because he’s trying to claw his way out of the friend zone, but I don’t think he’s even in a zone at this rate.”

Fionn takes another crunching bite of his carrot, filling his mouth as he lets out a goofy chuckle like a fucking dumb kid.

So I do what any reasonable, grown-ass man would do to his little brother.

I whip the carrot out of his hand and then pelt it at Lachlan, hitting him on the forehead with a satisfying whack.

My brothers protest in unison and I grin down at my luggage as I stuff another pair of jeans into my carry-on.

“I don’t think you’ve made this much effort for a woman since…ever. You haven’t seen her in what, a year?” Lachlan asks, not missing a beat.

The sound of Fionn’s choked cough fills the room. Lachlan and I watch as he catches flecks of orange in his tight fist. “What? A fucking year? Why am I only learning about this now?”

“You’ve had your head in your ass in buttfuck nowhere playing town doctor, that’s why,” Lachlan snickers. “Come back to Boston, Fionn. Stop wallowing like some Hallmark Movie Sad Man Cinderwhatever and come home to practice some real medicine.”

“Prick,” Fionn and I say in perfect unison.

Lachlan grins and sets his glass down on the side table, pulling a pearl-handled switchblade from his pocket before leaning back to unbuckle the extra strip of worn leather from the custom stropping belt at his waist. He loops the metal ring at the slack end of the belt around his middle finger and stretches the leather out, then starts to sharpen the blade on the rough edge of the hide. It’s something he’s done since we were kids, something that soothes him. Lachlan might enjoy ribbing Fionn and me, but I know he’s stressed about our younger brother no longer living in the same city as us, and now about me going off to play some insane death game with a serial killer I barely know. “I’m not wrong,” he says after a few passes of the blade over the cowhide. “Nebraska is too far, kid. Besides, you’re clearly missing out on all the good details of Rowan’s non-existent, comically sad love life being out there.”

“True,” Fionn admits. His thoughtful gaze drops to the hardwood as he crosses his arms and leans against the dresser. He’s probably assigning numeric values to knowing the gossip versus being out of the loop, and is weighing the statistical probability of his happiness divided by pi.

Fucking nerd. 

“Have you seen her?” Fionn asks as he snaps out of his analytical haze, looking straight to Lachlan as though I’m not even here.

“Only in a few photos.” Lachlan takes a sip of his drink as he smirks at my lethal glare. “She’s fucking hot. Definitely has a dark side—she likes to take her victims’ eyeballs while they’re still alive. The feds call her the Orb Weaver. Her actual name is Sloane Sutherland.”

“Keep her fucking name out of your mouth,” I snarl.

Lachlan’s booming laugh fills the room. He raises the hand gripping the switchblade to his mouth as the sound of his amusements floods the space between us. The smartass is undoubtedly reminding me that, out of the two of us, he’s the one with a weapon at the ready.

If the razor-sharp blade wasn’t clutched in his hand, I’d already be punching his fucking smug face.

“Let’s say you manage to claw your way into the friend zone, and then by some fucking miracle you get yourself beyond that and into the spider lady’s good graces without losing an eye, how would you like me to refer to her?”

“I don’t know, asshole. How about Queen. Or, Your Highness. Fuck off.”

I groan as Lachlan’s laugh surrounds us again, even louder than before. “Fuck Off it is. ‘Pleased to meet you, Fuck Off. I’m your brother-in-law, welcome to the family, Fuck Off.’”

I’m about to launch into Lachlan when my burner phone dings in my pocket.

Making the most of it.

There’s a photo of Sloane’s delicate fingers wrapped around a glass of champagne in business class on a plane, her blood-red manicure shining in the artificial cabin light.

My heart knocks against my ribs.

I can almost feel those nails scraping across my chest and down my abs, wrapping around my cock with deceptive strength. I can imagine the heat of those hazel eyes locked to mine, her breath warming my neck as she whispers in my ear.

Lachlan snickers as though he can read my every thought and I clear my throat.

I see you’re already on the plane. That’s…great…

Indeed I am. And you’re clearly not. I’ll see you if you eventually catch up! I won’t hold my breath though!

My cheeks flush as my thumbs hover over the keyboard.

Is it too late to call a restart?

Sloane’s response is immediate.

Absofuckinglutely.

A growl vibrates through my chest as I double my efforts to pack, even though I know it won’t get me on a plane any faster.

“You okay there, little brother? Or has Fuck Off already killed your target?”

I consider throwing my half-packed luggage at Lachlan’s smirking face when his phone rings. Any trace of humor disintegrates from his features like ash falling from a charred log, leaving only cracked carbon behind.

“This is Lachlan,” he says. His voice is gruff as he responds to the caller with clipped ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers, his timbre low. I twist the shirt I’m rolling into a tight coil until my knuckles bleach. My eyes are fused to my older brother, but he doesn’t look up from the switchblade turning over in his hand. “I’ll be there. Give me thirty minutes.”

When he meets my eyes, Lachlan’s brief smile is grim.

“Night shift?” I ask.

“Night shift,” he replies.

By day, Lachlan runs Kane Atelier, his specialist leatherworking studio where he creates beauty from the skin of death. But by night, whenever Leander Mayes calls, my brother becomes the ruthless tool of the devil.

Personally, I enjoy taking the lives of whatever scumbags happen to float my way through the hellish soup of modern society.

Lachlan…? I don’t know if he enjoys much of anything these days. He kills with purpose but shrouds himself in cool detachment. Unless he’s carving hide with his hands or taking the piss out of me and Fionn, I don’t think life matters to him at all.

A pang hits my chest as Lachlan rises from his chair, pocketing his blade and cracking his neck as he threads his stropping belt back into place across his waist. A faint trace of his smile returns when it lands on me.

“Be safe, dickhead,” he says.

“You too, asshat.”

Lachlan sneers, but still claps a warm hand on my shoulder as he passes by. He presses his head to mine for a breath and then he’s gone, heading toward the door to do the same with Fionn. Our youngest brother has never been good at hiding his worries. Fionn wears every shade of sadness and worry in his light blue eyes, and he watches Lachlan stride away with aching concern spread across his boyish features.

“See you later, kids,” Lachlan says as he strides over the threshold and disappears down the dimly lit hall. “And move home, Fionn.”

“Hard pass,” Fionn replies, and a chuckle responds from the dark before the heavy door of my apartment closes with a reverberant thud. Fionn turns to me, that anxiety still etched as a crease in the space between his brows. “You sure this trip of yours is a good idea? I mean, how well do you even know this Sloane?”

I drop Fionn’s gaze, grinning as I zip my duffel and sling it over my shoulder.

“Not well at all. I’ve met her only once.”

Fionn’s nervous swallow is nearly audible. “Once? How did you meet?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“This sounds a bit impulsive, Rowan, even for you. I know you’ve got the whole middle child thing going on,” he says, waving a hand in my direction the way he and Lachlan always do to explain my wild behavior and reckless decisions. “Meeting with some serial killer woman who you’ve only spoken to once a year ago is…not normal.”

My laugh seems to do little to reassure him. “Nothing about us is normal, but I’ll be fine. I have a gut instinct about her.”

The burner phone dings in my pocket.

I’m about to take off. If this were a race, you’d already be behind.

Oh wait… it IS a race! Look at that. I hope you like disarticulated eyeballs because I’m going to kill this shit, pun intended. Safe travels and get fucked! xo

“Yeah, Fionn,” I say with a bright grin as I slide my phone back into my pocket and head toward the door. “I think I’ll be okay.”