Scythe & Sparrow: Chapter 22

Fionn

This isn’t just a kiss.

This is what it feels like to break wide open.

I frame Rose’s face with my bloody hands. I devour her with need. She grips the back of my neck and consumes me with equal desire. This kiss is all bite. It’s teeth clashing. Moans and whimpers and sweeping tongues. It’s urgency and demand. It’s an unleashing of desire that we’ve pushed beneath unraveling rules and conditions for far too long.

I’m drowning in her, swept away in a current I couldn’t escape if I wanted to. Her scent. Her taste. The more I take, the more I want. The more she gives, the more I need. I don’t know how I ever lived without the feel of her mouth on mine or the vibration of her moan on my lips. Her electric touch hums in my flesh. It’s the most alive I’ve ever felt.

I slide a hand down her face, her makeup smearing beneath my fingertips, deepening the kiss as I push her toward the bed. We both fumble with our clothes, me with the buttons of her costume and her with my belt. When we make it to the bed, I break the kiss just long enough to push the top sheet and mannequin off the edge and onto the floor.

“Anyone could walk in here,” Rose says, her tone breathless as I guide her down to the mattress.

“I don’t fucking care.” I catch a glimpse of her smile before I dive back into the kiss, pulling her baggy pants down and then the leggings and thong beneath. I bite her neck just hard enough to make her gasp. I soothe the nip with a kiss as I run a finger over her pussy, trailing the liquid heat of her arousal over her clit. I swallow her moan, lavish her tongue with mine, consume every sound of pleasure she makes as I swirl my touch over her swollen bundle of nerves. She writhes beneath me. She hums at my touch. She breaks the kiss to frame my face with her hands, her eyes dancing between mine.

“I want you, Fionn.” Her tongue sweeps across her lips as her gaze flicks to my mouth. “I need you.”

The air stills around us. Time seems to slow. She’s said words like that before. So have I. But it feels different this time. I raise my hand to her face as I hover over her, sweeping the fringe from her brow. She might have a crazy costume on, a face painted in smears of black and white, but all I see is Rose. Beautiful and bright. Shining through her mask like she was never meant to live behind one. I don’t think she ever has. And for the first time, maybe I know what that freedom tastes like.

“I need you too,” I say, my heart a molten core in my chest when her eyes flutter closed as my caress trails down her cheek. “I think I always have. I just didn’t realize how much until you showed up and changed everything.”

Rose’s eyes open, inky pools in the dim light. They don’t leave mine. She reaches between us and tugs my jeans and briefs down to grasp my length with a firm hand. When I shed my jacket and shirt, she lines me up to her entrance. I watch every subtle change in her expression as I push into her tight heat. Desperation and relief, pleasure and need, hope and secrets. All the things I think we both still want to say but are afraid to put out into the world in case they’re too fragile to thrive in the dark. But they’re still there, blooming in the night.

When I’ve slid all the way to the base of my erection, I pause, leaning closer, savoring the sweetness of her scent and the longing in her eyes. No one has ever looked at me the way she does. And I’ve never wanted anyone like I want Rose. Never admired anyone, never been as enchanted or enthralled by anyone. I’ve never been as awestruck by anyone, this woman who doesn’t just live her life but blazes through it like a comet burning through space, setting fire to the sky. I’ve never wanted to open up the darkest corners of my soul and show them to anyone like I have to Rose.

I’ve never loved anyone like I love Rose.

I close the distance between us and seal my lips to hers. I pull out slowly. Push back in. We pick up a rhythm, slow at first, gentle amid the horror and violence that’s melted into the backdrop like a distant memory. Rose’s fingers trace patterns on my skin, following the ridges of my spine. She hooks a leg across my back and takes my cock deeper. Every gliding stroke is heaven, her heat an embrace that I never want to leave. I break the kiss to press my lips in a line down her neck. Across her collarbone. Down her chest. I pull the cups of her lace bra down and expose her breasts. She gasps when I take her nipple in my mouth and tease it with my tongue. I scrape it with my teeth just hard enough to make her clench tighter around me. Then I soothe the whisper of pain with my tongue.

“I’m not going to last,” she breathes as I piston into her, the rhythm more urgent with every thrust. “I want to come with you.”

I take her delicate wrist and guide it down between us. Her fingers trace the muscle of my chest and the ridges of my abs until I turn her hand down to her clit. “Then you’d better touch yourself. Because I’m about to fucking fill this perfect pussy.”

I seal my mouth to hers and swallow the moan that tumbles free. Rose’s touch circles between us. The current builds at the base of my spine. I feel her channel constrict around my erection. Her muscles tighten beneath my hands, one of them folded around her neck, her pulse a hammer against my palm. Her head tilts back but the kiss never breaks. Not as a desperate scream threatens to burst free between us. Not as my balls tighten and I spill into her, pushing as deep as our bodies will allow. Not as the orgasm rolls through me in waves until my heart threatens to break out of my chest, its furious beats deafening in my ears. Not even when Rose’s muscles start to relax, her body boneless as my strokes gentle until they still. Even then, the kiss lingers. What was desperate becomes sweet. Soft. A tender, wordless conversation in the dark.

When it finally breaks, I stare into Rose’s eyes. Reality starts to creep back in, one piece at a time. The quiet crackle of static on the TV. The scent of the fog machine. The green and blue lights.

The body on the wall.

The things I’ve done.

Rose. I need to get her out of here.

I pull out slowly, not ready to part, to embrace the dread of the unknown when I’ve just felt the first moments of clarity that I’ve been searching for all my life.

“You need to leave,” I whisper.

Rose props herself up on her elbows, searching my face. Her skin glistens in the dim light with every breath, and I want nothing more than to feel her warmth again. “What do you mean?”

“I need to call someone to help with this,” I say with a nod to the wall behind me as I pull my jeans and briefs up.

“We can do it—”

“We can’t, Rose. But I know someone who can help.”

“I can stay. I want to.” A thread of panic weaves its way through her voice when she says, “I don’t want to leave you alone here with this.”

“Rose,” I say, my shoulders falling when she shakes her head. “I can’t. I’m the one who did this, and I’m not going to risk you getting caught up in the aftermath.”

Tears shine in Rose’s eyes as she sits up. “But—”

“Please,” I say, kneeling in front of her. I take her face in my hands. Her lip wobbles with mounting worry and the effort to hold back tears. She tries to shake her head, but I pin her with a serious and steady stare, one that brooks no argument. “I cannot. Risk. You. I will not. Please, Rose. I’m begging you. Just go back to the apartment, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The moment between us could be eternal. Every shift of her glassy eyes between mine, every breath she takes, every motion of my thumb as I caress her cheek. It all embeds itself into my memory. “Okay,” she finally whispers, and I try my best to give her a reassuring smile. I lean closer. Press my lips to hers. And then I let go.

We pull our clothes back into place. Fix the bed. When we’re done, Rose moves to the door but hesitates. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she replies. “Are you?”

I smile, though it’s faint and probably not very convincing. “I will be.”

Rose gives me a nod, her eyes tracking toward Cranwell’s body and lingering there before returning to me. “Thank you, Fionn. I … I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

With a final glance that carries the weight of fear and worry behind her eyes, Rose turns away and leaves.

It’s not until I’m sure she’s gone that I make a phone call I never thought I would make.

And then I wait, standing in the center of the room like I’m one of the mannequins, an unmoving statue among the mayhem and madness. It could be five minutes that passes. It could be an hour. I replay every moment of the night on a loop until the sound of approaching footsteps breaks me away.

“Well, well, well,” a voice says from the darkness. I’ve only heard him a handful of times, but I’d recognize the devil anywhere. “Out of everyone, yours is the call I least expected, but the one I most hoped for.”

Leander Mayes steps into the light.

I stand straighter. “Thank you for coming.”

“You Kane boys are so different, and yet, so much the same,” Leander says as he saunters closer. He’s completely at ease in the midst of chaos, much like he was the first time we met. I’d looked up to see him enter the room as I stitched Rowan’s split lip. Lachlan still had his belt gripped tight around our father’s neck, even though his final heartbeat had long since passed. And Leander grinned then, much in the way he grins now. “You’ve always looked out for one another. Always had each other’s backs. I’m assuming that’s why I’m standing here right now and not Lachlan or Rowan, isn’t that right?”

“I thought you might be more … efficient,” I say, though that’s only a half-truth.

Leander’s gaze pans around us and his smile stretches. When his eyes snag on the mannequins hung up on the wall, Matt Cranwell’s closest to the corner of the room, he laughs. “Oh dear. You’ve been having some fun.”

“Not exactly.” My words feel like a lie.

He makes his way toward the body, slowing his steps as he passes by. He raises his hand, a photo pinched between his fingers. In the picture, Matt and I stare into each other’s eyes. Me with a lethal glare. Matt with shock and fear painted across his face. At the bottom of the image is the knife in my hand, lodged deep into Cranwell’s belly. “A souvenir,” Leander says, and slides it into the interior pocket of his jacket as he gives me a wink.

I watch as Leander saunters toward Cranwell. He stops within reach and tilts his head as though he’s contemplating a work of art. And suddenly, I feel like the beast I’ve been desperate to unleash has just found itself in a whole new cage.

“Very precise,” Leander says, motioning toward Cranwell. “Surgical, even. Made a bit of a mess though.” He leans closer to the body, inspecting the blood-soaked shirt and the torn flesh. He prods the wound with a gloved finger and Matt’s bowels and intestines tumble out of the slit, pink ropes that glisten in the dim light and drop to Leander’s feet, his shoes covered with waterproof booties. “Intestines make me hungry every time I see them, even despite the smell. Reminds me of sausages. Does this place have hot dogs?”

When I don’t immediately answer, Leander turns just enough to look at me over his shoulder.

“Yes. But the food stalls are all closed.”

“Shame. I’d really like a hot dog.” Our gazes remain pinned to each other for a long moment, and then Leander turns his attention back to the body on the wall. When he removes the burlap sack from Matt’s head, he barks a delighted laugh before leaning in close to examine the dead man’s face. “Wow. Impressive. That must have been a hard blow,” he says as he flicks the bulging eye. He pokes a finger into the other orbit where the glass eye once was. “I’m going to assume there was a prosthetic as well, yes? Where is it?”

My skin turns to fire. When Leander turns and raises his brows in a question, there’s nothing I can give for an answer.

“Don’t recall where you hit him so hard his eyes popped out?” Leander says. I shake my head, and the corners of his lips curl. “Pity. No matter. I can have a scent dog brought in. We’ll find it.”

He whistles and two unfamiliar men enter the room wearing hooded coveralls and carrying toolboxes and bags of supplies. “So, what did he do to deserve this fantastical and very fitting end, anyway?”

I think of Rose. Her face. Her fear. I think of the incandescent rage that consumed every cell in my body. The relief and excitement when the blade pierced Cranwell’s abdomen. The feeling of his flesh splitting open and the terror in his scream. “He started it.”

Leander huffs, clearly pleased with my answer. “And you finished it.” He pats Cranwell’s pockets down until he finds his mobile phone. “I’ll make sure this is all taken care of.”

“I appreciate your help,” I say, and he gives me a single nod in reply. “How much do I owe you?”

Leander pins me with an unblinking, unnerving stare that latches on and doesn’t let go. His expression is blank, emotionless. And then, a burst of laughter. It’s a sudden transformation that brightens his cheeks and crinkles the corners of his eyes. It would look normal if it wasn’t for the predatory way he watches me.

“I don’t want your money,” he says. My heart falls to the floor, ready to be removed with the rest of the blood and gore spilled across the planks beneath my feet. And Leander Mayes sees it. He loves it. “I just want a little bit of your time. Your … expertise.”

I glance over at one of the men as he fills a spray bottle with a solution in a silver container. He meets my eyes only briefly before his attention flicks to Leander and then shifts to the floor. “What do you mean?” I ask when I refocus on Leander, whose smile remains undimmed.

“What I mean is, I need your skills.” Leander pulls a plastic bag from the interior pocket of his jacket and slips the phone into it. He walks toward where the two men have started working and picks up a spray bottle. He mists the liquid over the floor, and patches start to glow with an eerie blue luminescence. There are smears and streaks. Boot prints in blood. One set of prints is mine. One must be Cranwell’s. But there’s a much smaller set that glows with the damning light of luminol.

Rose.

Leander chuckles. “Looks like you had a little partner in crime.” My hands fold into fists, a motion that catches Leander’s attention immediately. He grins. Even despite the body hanging from the wall, and the knowledge that I’ve just brutally killed a man, Leander Mayes is not afraid of me. He turns his back to me and sets the spray bottle down next to the supplies. “Did you ever tell your brothers what you did?”

I don’t want to answer, but when Leander faces me, it’s impossible not to say something. “Do you mean tipping off your cousins about the money my father owed them?”

His smile stretches. “That too. But I was more referring to how you stabbed your father in the back and severed his spinal cord. Lachlan might have taken credit for that kill by strangling Callum Kane, but even he didn’t know that you’re the one who brought the bastard down, does he?” He studies me with that predatory glee still lingering in his eyes. “Quite a nifty little trick, isn’t it? If you aim just right,” Leander says with a sudden jabbing motion toward Cranwell’s body, his fist closed around a phantom weapon, “there’s hardly any blood at all. He must have felt nothing from the waist down. Just a quick snap and down he went so your brother could finish the job. Even I didn’t realize at first. Not until I cleaned up that mess and stripped Callum of his clothes.”

For as many times as Lachlan has called Leander the devil, I’ve not really understood why. But now I do. In just a few short minutes, he’s got me trapped in a corner by my secrets and deeds and desires, unable to escape.

“What is it that you want, Leander?”

“I’m so happy you asked.” He wanders back to the cooling body and leans toward it, inspecting Cranwell’s slack expression. “I have a contract coming up. It’s kind of a big deal, if I do say so myself. I’ve hired the best of the best. Cream of the crop, if you will. But even then,” he says, his gaze drifting back to me over his shoulder, “I expect some casualties. Bodies that need repair on the battlefield, you know? And I need my people to be in tip-top shape for the duration of the contract.”

I say nothing.

Leander turns back to Cranwell, but not before I catch a glimpse of his grin. “Some of my team might need a bit of … rejuvenation … when the work is done. Anonymity is paramount in certain circles, if you catch my drift.”

I hold my palms up in a placating gesture, even though we both know they’re smeared with crimson stains. “I’m not a cosmetic surgeon.”

“You’re a smart, motivated man,” Leander says. “I’m confident you’ll learn.”

My gaze slices toward the two men cleaning up after my mess. They don’t look up. They don’t cast judgment my way. They just do their jobs, spraying and wiping and spraying again as though this is all perfectly normal. And as much as I’m still reluctant to admit it, I can’t deny there’s something comforting about this clandestine world where any transgression can be cleaned away. For a price.

“So you want me to play doctor. For how long?”

Leander shrugs. “Ideally? Forever.”

“No.”

Leander turns, his grin menacing. “The way I see it, ‘no’ is not really an option, Dr. Kane.”

He’s right, of course. I know it. And there’s no sense in arguing with a man like Leander Mayes. I can only hope to negotiate. “How long is this contract?” I ask.

“Seven months. Approximately …”

“I’ll do this contract for you,” I say, every word clear and careful and confident despite the intimidating darkness that settles across Leander’s face. “And after that, we’ll discuss something that works for us both.”

“Works for us both?” he repeats.

I shrug as though I’m unbothered, though my heart is pounding in my ears and my throat tries to close around my words. “You want to be sure you’re completely satisfied with the service I provide … right?”

We both know I could kill his team, kill him, and they wouldn’t even see it coming. And even though I just issued an unspoken threat, something about the gleam in Leander’s eyes tells me he likes it.

“Excellent,” he says with a startling clap of his hands. “We leave for Croatia tomorrow.”

“Croatia? But—”

“Oh, did I not say this position required some travel?” Leander’s lips peel back to reveal his shining veneers. “Oops, my bad. But don’t worry, Dr. Kane. You’ll be provided with all the equipment you could possibly need. And a nice bit of cash too. I’ll double what you’re making now.”

I pause, reeling. “But my clinic … the hospital—”

“My team will take care of all that, don’t worry.”

“My house—”

“That too. It’ll be well looked after until you’re ready to sell.”

“You expect me to just … leave? But I have a life there.”

“Do you, though? Sure, some people in Hartford will have questions. And it’s my job to make sure the answers are ready. But do you really think they’ll wonder why the reclusive Dr. Kane suddenly decided to take to the road after years spent as little more than a ghost among them?”

My heart stutters like it’s taken an arrow to its chambers. I open my mouth, but no words come out. Not even a breath of air.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Leander straightens. He faces me. The silence is as heavy as the scent of blood and death in the room. “This isn’t the kind of job where you want strays to follow you home. And you can’t have anyone from home trying to find you either. It’s for safety’s sake, you understand? So you can’t tell Rowan and you especially can’t tell Lachlan. The last thing I need is for him to have another reason to be irritated with me. I’ve given him enough already lately.”

I know my brothers, and so does he. If they felt that I was in danger, they would travel to the ends of the earth to find me. “Okay,” is all I can manage.

Leander’s smile is that of a man who knows he’s won. He takes a slow step toward me. Another. And another. He claps me on the shoulder and lets his hand linger there as though his touch is reassuring. His gaze pans across the floor before meeting mine once more. His smile might be a touch pitying when he says, “And you can’t tell Miss Evans. You wouldn’t want to put Rose of all people in danger, would you? Especially not when I’ll be trying to look after her best interests. The Sparrow is not the easiest person to keep out of trouble, after all.”

With a final pat on my shoulder, Leander walks away, leaving me feeling as though my heart has just been torn from my chest and incinerated before my very eyes. I’m still staring at the floor, blinking away a sting that won’t subside, when Leander knocks on the wooden frame of the door.

“I’m famished,” Leander says from the threshold. “I’d really love a hot dog. How about you?”

I blink and blink, but that pain just won’t leave. And neither will Leander. Not until I follow him down the stairs as he makes a call to bring in a search dog to find Matthew Cranwell’s prosthetic eye. Not as we open the door to the cool October night. It clings on as we find one of the closed food stalls on the silent fairgrounds and Leander breaks in with a snap gun.

I make Leander Mayes a hot dog.

And when he’s finally done, his point proven about how thoroughly he now controls my life, he arranges for a private car to drive me to Rose’s apartment.

Familiar Boston streets pass by the window. And I feel like a ghost in this city. Because my life is in the hands of the devil.

And my heart has burned to ash.