T he city disgusts me.
The scent of the polluted sea. Exhaust from a passing bus. The breath of people who spill their putrid thoughts into the vile air. The city is a cesspool of decay.
Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord.
I swallow the distaste for this environment that has engulfed me for the past week. My gaze drifts from one end of the street to the other, but it always returns to the door across the street and the curve of gold letters on the glass.
My watch alarm beeps. Twelve noon.
Lord, I ask for your blessings to be poured out onto me, your humble servant. Lift my hand against my adversaries. Send back upon them every wrongdoing and injustice they have loosed upon me, your faithful disciple.
Amen.
I open my eyes and resume my vigil from the cafe patio. My tea has cooled, the book splayed before me remains unread. My fingers tap in time to the music that echoes in my head. A hymn, one my mother used to sing.
Let sinners take their course,
And choose the road to death
The door opens across the street. A tall man with an athletic build holds it open for a woman with raven hair. Her gaze flicks to her surroundings. ‘The Killers,’ her black t-shirt says.
My blood heats.
But I, with all my cares,
Will lean upon the Lord;
I’ll cast my burdens on his arm,
And rest upon his word
As they step onto the sidewalk, the couple turns to speak with another man who lingers behind on the threshold of the door. Black tattoos cover his hands and his muscled arms. He’s not as tall as the first man but more powerful in build. The protector. The fighter. I can tell—the way he stands, the way he grins, the coiled readiness in every move. A snake, always ready to strike.
They exchange words I can’t hear, smiles I can’t feel. The second man clamps his hand over the shoulder of the first. Their foreheads press together before they separate. The first man then walks away hand-in-hand with the woman. He places a kiss to her temple and she grins. I watch them stroll down the street and turn the corner. For a long moment, my gaze remains there, trapped on their absence as though I haunt their footsteps, a ghost lurking in their shadows.
I settle deeper into my chair. I refocus my attention where it needs to be.
On Kane Atelier.
I seek His blessing every noon,
And pay my vows at night.
Rowan Kane took my brother.
And I vow to take his.
THANK you so much for reading!! Keep flipping the pages for a first look at Leather & Lark, Book 2 in the Ruinous Love Trilogy that will follow Lark Montague and Lachlan Kane’s journey to love. And for a bonus spicy chapter of Rowan and Sloane, click the link below!
Butcher & Blackbird Bonus Chapter - “Skullduggery”
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LEATHER & LARK
This is a first teaser for Lachlan and Lark’s story - a hate-to-love, marriage of convenience, dark romantic comedy! Teaser subject to change. Release date TBC.
LACHLAN
Lark and Sloane exchange some kind of silent conversation.
Sloane raises a single brow.
Lark’s eyes narrow.
Sloane sighs and shrugs.
And then Lark is pushing her seat back. She stands and hikes her ridiculous hobo bag up her shoulder.
“Gotta run,” she says as she beams a smile bright as a feckin’ laser at Sloane and Rowan. When it lands on me, that smile feels like it could slash my skin open. “See you at home.”
And then she’s striding out of Butcher & Blackbird, her energy trailing after her like a comet.
Rowan laughs and shakes his head before he takes a sip of his drink. “Unless you want to be bailing her out of jail, you’d better go get your wife.”
I lean back in my chair and tap the ring on my index finger against my glass as I try not to look toward the door. My focus lands on Sloane instead, who masks her smile with a bite of food.
A sinking feeling coats my chest. “What are you on about?”
“Go get her before she knifes Claire, you bellend,” he says.
“Nah…she…” I look toward the door and then to Sloane, her eyes full of sparks. “What…?”
“Listen,” she says, laying her palm flat against the table as she finally meets my eyes. That bloody dimple flashes next to her lip. It’s like her bat signal for mischief. “Lark Montague might be cute as a button, all shiny happy rainbows ra-ra cheerleader shit, but bitch is a fucking psycho in disguise. I love her to death and beyond, but psycho.”
I still can’t reconcile their words with the woman I think I know. “That Lark…Music therapist, singer songwriter, happy-happy-joy-joy Lark…? You’re telling me she has a psycho streak…?”
They both laugh. Fucking laugh.
“Lachlan,” Sloane says, shaking her head, “she doesn’t just have a streak. She has a full-on glitter parade of psycho.”
Rowan points his fork toward her. “She once rigged a glitter bomb in my car for the time I made Sloane cry and told her to go home. I spent a grand getting the car detailed and I still find glitter on a daily basis.”
“When we were in boarding school, this girl named Macie Roberts called one of Lark’s friends a ‘skanky cum bucket’. So Lark got into Macie’s room and spent an entire night writing ‘I’m a skanky cum-bucket’ in fabric paint on literally every item of clothing Macie had, even her underwear.”
“Tell him about the sequins.”
“Sequins?” I ask as the two snicker.
Sloane’s brows hike as she pushes a bit of food around her plate. “A few years ago, Lark was living with her boyfriend of the time, a guy named Andrew. One weekend while Lark was out of town, he and their mutual friend Savannah hooked up at Lark and Andrew’s apartment,” she says as an irrational tidal wave of anger sweeps through me and back out again. “A couple weeks later, Lark broke into Savannah’s house while she was sleeping and spelled ‘cheating bitch’ on her face with Gorilla Glue and sequins. She stole Savannah’s bottle of nail polish remover and her phone and computer so she had no choice but to go out and buy more to get the glue off. Even once the sequins were gone, you could still see the marks. It was pretty awesome.”
I can’t deny I kind of love the ballsiness of that plan. I almost smile, but then I catch the exchange of a dark look between Sloane and Rowan. “What is it?”
“Well…Lark will neither confirm nor deny her involvement, but two months later, Andrew died in a freak fireworks accident.”
“Lark…killed someone…? That Lark?”
Sloane shrugs.
“Don’t know why you’re still sitting here when she’s probably slicing Claire’s face off to make into a kite, but it’s your bail money, I guess,” Rowan says, and in a heartbeat I’m halfway to the door, my chair a loud clang behind me as it tips over with the force of my urgency.
The sound of Rowan and Sloane’s laughter follows me out to the street.