Page 100 of Butcher & Blackbird

I pull the ring from her grasp and hold it at the end of her finger.

“What do you say, Blackbird? Will you marry me?”

Tears streak across her freckles as she nods, her voice tight when she says the words I’ve been waiting months, maybe even years, to hear. “Yes, Rowan. Of course I’ll marry you.”

I slide the ring on her finger and she no more than glances at it before she barrels into me, nearly knocking me to the floor as she grasps my face between her palms and peppers my skin with whispered yeses and desperate kisses.

“I love you, Butcher,” Sloane whispers when she pulls away to look into my face. Then she slants her mouth to mine.

She doesn’t have to say it, because I feel it in every touch and weighted glance. It bleeds into the kiss she presses to my lips, as though it lives on her tongue when it sweeps over mine. But those words still sink into my chest, another layer of an unbreakable foundation.

Sloane slows our kiss and when we part, she grasps my hand to tug me to my feet. As soon as I’m up, she drags me toward the darkened corridor that leads to the exit off the kitchen and the doctor’s collection of expensive cars. “Now let’s go do karate in the garage.”

“By ‘karate’ do you mean I’ll bend you over the hood of Doctor Stephan’s Porsche and fuck you blind until you beg me to stop?”

Sloane tosses a wicked grin over her shoulder. Her dimple pops out next to her lip as she gives me a wink and leads me toward the shadows. “Follow me and find out, pretty boy.”

Maybe I was right. We’re not normal people. We are monsters.

But if we’re monsters, we’ll thrive in the dark.

Together.

EPILOGUE

THE PHANTOM

The 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