Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Mad Stuck in the Darkness
Beyond Jealousy

Ohhhh, my. This scene was a big one when it comes to Mad and his mysterious past. (And that past is a big part of what he has to overcome in Beyond Ruin.)

Though the highlight of this scene is definitely wondering what the fuck went down with his grandfather and his mother, the end emphasizes something important. Even though we often jokingly refer to Mad as a prince-in-exile (in the books and while chatting about him), his exile is self-imposed and highly voluntary. Mad chooses the O’Kanes because of what they represent–for him, never having to survive alone in the darkness again.

* * *

Mad hated the dark.

He hated the silence of it, the emptiness. It wasn’t natural. Outside, under the night sky, the world gave him a hundred subtle sources of sound and endless pinpricks of light. God had never intended for man to have to survive alone in the darkness.

He hadn’t meant for man to survive underground, either. Mad could feel the weight of the earth pushing in around him, and not just because a few chunks of building had landed on him in the aftermath of the explosion.

Lucky. He’d been so, so lucky. The floor had crumbled and carried him down, but he’d managed to roll before the ceiling followed it. Trapped in claustrophobic darkness was still better than crushed to death, even with a body bruised and his head throbbing with the kind of pain that would have Doc in a panic.

If he ever saw Doc again.

If he ever saw anyone again.

He couldn’t think in the dark. He couldn’t breathe in it, either. That was the only sound left, the dim, faraway rasp of air flooding his lungs and rushing out, and it was probably his imagination that it felt thinner every time his lungs expanded.

“It’s all right, mi hijo. We’re going to get out of here.”

No, no they weren’t. But she sounded so confident every time she said it, because Adriana Rios had grown up as the daughter of the prophet, Sector One’s adored, benevolent princess, and she refused to believe in a world where love didn’t conquer all.

“Here.” Something brushed the backs of his fingers, a phantom touch that crawled over his skin. “Squeeze my hand. Can you do that for Mommy?”

His hand would be larger than hers now. God, it almost had been then. He hadn’t been thirteen years old in decades, but he’d never forget the shame of clutching at her hand like a little boy when he was old enough to be a man. Maybe if he’d been a better one, she would have walked out of that cramped cellar with him.

But he could feel her now. Hear her. Maybe that meant his time had run out. The first explosion must have been a misfire, but the next ones wouldn’t be. There’d be no time to dig Mad out, and Bren or Jas or someone would do their fucking duty and drag Dallas to safety before it blew. The end was rushing toward Mad, and his mother had come to take him home.

The next rough voice dispelled that perversely comforting thought. “You treat him like a child, Adriana.”

“I don’t want you,” Mad whispered, and he didn’t care that he was talking to empty air. Sound filled the silence, whether it was the rasp of his own voice or the murmuring of ghosts.

But not this ghost. Not him.

Rubble crunched under boots, and Mad felt hot breath on his face. “Live or die,” his grandfather whispered. “It isn’t in human hands. Your fate is God’s to decide.”

God hadn’t thrown Mad and his mother into a dark room. God hadn’t held a gun to Mad’s head, grinding it so hard against his temple he still had the scar, swearing to Adriana that he’d kill her son if she didn’t convince him to slice off her finger.

Her fate had rested in the prophet’s hands. In human hands.

Mad’s fate rested in human hands, too—but not in his grandfather’s. Not this time.

Rolling over meant a moment of dizziness, but Mad forced himself to his knees, and then his feet. Panic made his heart pound. Pain made his head swim. The bomb had to blow, any minute now, any second—

The blueprints Noah had flashed at him floated through his head. They’d considered coming in through the tunnels, at first, before discarding the plan as too complicated. But they were there, a way out, if he could just move his feet—

—if Dallas remembered the tunnels—

—if someone got there in time to open the doors—

“I’m not a Rios,” he told the ghosts, ignoring the insanity of talking to them at all. The first step nearly sent him sprawling, but he found the wall and oriented himself, struggling to remember the path he had to take. Away from the explosion, away from the wreckage.

Toward his brothers.

He wasn’t a Rios. Wasn’t even a Maddox, though that was the name he’d taken as his own. He took step after staggering step because he knew Bren wouldn’t have dragged Dallas away. Dallas wouldn’t have let him.

Mad had faith. The door would open.

“You can do this.” His mother’s voice—calm, level. No hint of the terror she’d tried so damn hard to hide from her little boy.

The door would open.

He wiped sweat from his forehead, only to realize it was too sticky, too warm. Blood, and he could taste it on his lips when he wet them. Every step hurt. It would be easier to lie down and close his eyes.

But the door would open.

He reached the far side of the basement and slammed into it, sagged against it, pressing his forehead to the cool steel. If he had a light, if his head hadn’t been swimming, he could have tried to pry the panel off this side, struggled to figure out some way to force it open.

All he could do now was believe. Put his faith in O’Kane hands.

Empty space opened up in front of him. Light flared, hurting his eyes, but he was already falling, not toward the light but away from it, dizzy and weightless—

Strong arms caught him, and Bren’s familiar voice rumbled, “Fucking hell.”

The light swung back, illuminating Dallas’s face as the man dragged him down the tunnel, his growled words chasing Mad into a different kind of darkness. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Jade and Scarlet discussing Mad
Beyond Innocence

By Beyond Innocence, Jade and Scarlet were spending a lot of time together. But Scarlet has always known things were more complicated than just the two of them–and so has Jade. This scene actually comes after one of our later quotes (the concert in Sector 3 where Mad watches Scarlet perform) and marks the first time Scarlet and Jade discuss all those complications.

Jade also points out that Mad is from Sector One, which is an important point considering a fair chunk of Beyond Ruin takes place there.

* * *

Jade had the softest skin, the kind you could lose yourself in. And not just in the usual places, like the small of her back or the spot where her thigh met the luscious curve of her ass, either. Everywhere.

All of those milk baths and warm oil massages, no doubt. Sometimes, when Scarlet was high on pleasure and surrounded by the scent of coconut oil, she was pretty damn sure that the only good thing to ever come out of Sector Two was Jade’s skin.

Jade was braiding her hair now, the strands shining with that oil. She smiled at Scarlet as she tied off the end. “You look like you’re thinking hard.”

“Hardly thinking.” She rolled her head back on the pillow and reached out. “Come back.”

“In a moment.” She wiped her hands and reached for another jar from her vanity.

“You don’t need it, Jade.”

“It isn’t about need.” Jade twisted the cap off and lifted it, inhaling and then sighing. “My mother taught me this recipe.”

Scarlet dragged the sheet up to her chest as she rolled over and grabbed her cigarettes from Jade’s neatly organized bedside table. “What is it?”

“Lotion. Tatiana makes fancier ones, but…” She shrugged and smoothed the white cream across her cheeks in slow circles. “I used to teach the girls this—have a ritual. Sometimes the familiar is the only soothing thing you have.”

“Like my music.” Scarlet snapped her lighter shut and dropped it on the bed beside her. “It was the one thing that kept me from going nuts.”

Jade met her gaze in the mirror, her small, knowing smile back. “I think everyone appreciates your music.”

“Yeah? Sounds like you’re the one thinking hard.”

“Are we going to pretend Mad hasn’t been watching you since the concert?”

Her tone was teasing, light, but there was a question beneath the words. Scarlet shrugged. “Saint Adrian likes pretty things. My voice qualifies—at least when I’m singing.”

“Come now, Scarlet. He’s not that shallow.” Jade rose, leaving her robe behind in the chair. She approached the bed naked and unselfconscious, her perfect brown skin unmarked except for the O’Kane cuffs around her delicate wrists. “And he doesn’t like pretty things. He likes fragile things. Your voice certainly does not qualify.”

Scarlet had noticed him, watching her. Riveted, really, staring at her like he’d never seen her before, and she was torn between being flattered and being irritated. For someone who prided himself on being sensitive and aware, he sure the hell hadn’t noticed what was right in front of his face.

Or maybe he had, and he was shocked that a woman like Scarlet wasn’t always about hard lines and razor-sharp edges. That she could be just as soft as Jade, only in different ways. Different places.

“Perhaps he considers himself a connoisseur of vocal talent.” Scarlet wrapped one hand around the back of Jade’s knee and stroked her thumb over her skin. “Why don’t you say what you’re really thinking?”

Jade tilted her head. “I’m thinking…that I know what a man looks like when he sees something he wants. And I know what he looks like when he sees something he needs.”

Don’t ask. Don’t fucking ask— “Which one am I?”

“Which one do you want to be?”

Scarlet tugged sharply, dragging Jade down to the bed. Down to her. “I want to be right where I am.”

Jade laughed, warm and soft. “I put that towel on my pillow for a reason,” she protested, tugging away—but not very hard. “I’ll get coconut oil all over you.”

“You have no idea.” Scarlet crushed out her cigarette and walked her fingers up the center of Jade’s body, lingering between her breasts. “Out of curiosity, which one do you want to be?”

“I want…” She trailed off with a soft sigh, her eyes fluttering shut. She arched into Scarlet’s touch, slow and languid. “I want everyone to be happy.”

“Spoken like a true O’Kane.”

“They have their appeal, don’t they?”

“Certain members more than others.”

Jade caught Scarlet’s hand and opened her eyes. “He needs you, or someone like you. Someone strong. And he’ll never see that in me.”

Scarlet didn’t give two happy shits what he needed. She knew what he wanted, though, and it wasn’t her. Not by a long shot. “Do you love him?”

“Mad?” Her voice didn’t waver. “No.”

“Then what does it matter?”

“Because I’m not the only one in this bed.”

Scarlet froze. “You think I have a thing for the crown prince of Sector One?”

Jade tightened her grip on Scarlet’s hand. “It would be all right, you know. He is from Sector One. They don’t look at love the same way other sectors do.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not from One.” She pulled her hand free and dragged it through her hair. “Besides, last time I checked, Mad wasn’t exactly sleeping alone.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was the perfect chance to step back, let it slide, but Scarlet had always been shit at that. So she pressed on. “Everyone wants a hero, right? But the thing about heroes is that they’re just people. And the second you start thinking they can solve all your problems, you’ve already lost yourself.”

Jade touched Scarlet’s cheek, turning her face back. “Even heroes need saving sometimes.”

She sounded so solemn that it was impossible to tell if she was still talking about Mad—or Scarlet herself. “I’m no hero, Jade.”

“That’s what a hero would say.”

Scarlet reversed their positions, flipping Jade beneath her, heedless of her freshly oiled hair spreading out over the pillows. “I’m no hero,” she said again, dropping her hands to Jade’s waist. The delicate lines of her hipbones beckoned, and Scarlet traced them with her thumbs. “But I am here. Isn’t that enough?”

Jade smiled. “It’s everything.”

Everything. It skated dangerously, viciously close to the line Scarlet knew she couldn’t cross, the one where Jade called her a hero…and she started to believe her.

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Scarlet realizes how Very Complicated everyone’s feelings are.
Beyond Jealousy

Ahhh, yes. This is the scene, the one where we let people who were paying attention know just where these characters were headed. Jade, Mad, Scarlet & Dylan have been complicated from the beginning, but this is the scene where you get a peek of just how complicated. Because Jade likes Scarlet, and Mad likes Doc, and Scarlet likes Jade, and Jade likes Doc, and Scarlet likes Mad, and and and and…

It’s never going to get less complicated. But I sure the hell think it was worth it.

* * *

If only the bastard wasn’t so damn hot.

Scarlet brooded into her fourth drink—vodka, neat—and watched Jade smile up at Dylan Jordan. What she had to smile about was anyone’s guess, not to mention a mystery. Every time Scarlet herself had spoken to the man everyone called Doc, she’d come away irritable. Hot under the collar, in more ways than one.

Doctor. Back in Sector Three, there was no such thing, not really. People assumed the title, of course. Some were even good at healing, provided they’d apprenticed with someone skilled in folk medicine. Other, more affluent sectors had real doctors, older men and women who’d trained for years in the formal schools that had existed before the Flare.

And then there was Eden. Rumor had it Dylan Jordan had learned his trade in one of the city’s state-of-the-art facilities. Exiled since then, no doubt, but that didn’t change facts. He wasn’t some back-alley job with a bag full of drugs smuggled out of Sector Five. He was the real deal.

And a real asshole. Scarlet’s stomach flipped over as Jade leaned closer to him, her smile widening. Whatever knowledge and skills Doc possessed were practically buried beneath a drug-fueled haze. He spent half his time high and the other half doing suicidal shit that would get him killed sooner rather than later.

Scarlet would be damned if she let him take Jade with him when he went down.

A drink thudded next to hers, liquor sloshing over the edge of the glass as Adrian Maddox leaned against the bar beside her. “When did that start?” he asked, jerking his head toward Jade and Doc. “He never sticks around to unwind after a visit.”

Scarlet shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me.”

Mad considered the pair for a few moments before shaking his head. “It’s not going to happen. I don’t care how pretty Jade’s smiles are. Doc’s not going to start smiling back.”

He sounded almost jealous—though of which one, Scarlet couldn’t begin to guess. She nudged Mad with her hip and snorted. “You know better than to go there. Just like I do.”

He exhaled sharply, and it almost sounded like the start of a laugh. “Yeah, that’s you and me, Scarlet. Smart.”

“Liar.” Her gaze drifted back to the dance floor, where Doc had laid a hand on Jade’s waist. “We’re both stupid as hell.”

Mad’s gaze followed hers, and she felt the sudden tension roll through him. “Stupid,” he agreed. “But never selfish. You just met him. You don’t know how good he was, how good he could be again. I tried to make him see it, but…”

He sounded so damn sad, and the answering twinge in Scarlet’s chest pissed her off more. “The man’s a fucking burnout, Maddox. Everyone knows it.”

“Do they? Everyone knows you collect lovers, even though you’re stone cold.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping lower with every word. “Everyone knows you like the easily controlled, submissive ones. The ones you can play mind games with.” He straightened abruptly. “And everyone in Sector One knows my grandfather performed miracles and I should bless their kids. Everyone knows shit.”

Adrian Maddox on a defensive tear was a sight to behold, all clenched jaw and fiery, dark eyes. Scarlet smiled and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “Stop trying to convince me your boyfriend is a prince and give me a light, would you?”

One thing was for sure, at least Mad could laugh at himself. He slid out his lighter, a nice, shiny silver one engraved with an intricate logo she didn’t recognize. “I thought you knew, honey. I’m the prince.”

“You’re something close.” Scarlet lit her cigarette and turned the lighter over between her fingers. “Are you gonna break up the party on the dance floor, or should I?”

Mad frowned and said nothing.

“It’s okay to want to, you know. Whatever your reasons.”

His frown deepened, and Scarlet knew what was coming. Anyone who’d known Mad more than five minutes would have. “If she can make him smile, I’m not about to get petty.”

“Saint Adrian.” Scarlet slipped her cigarette between his lips and raised both eyebrows. “Maybe you should go bless some babies, after all. Me? I think I’ll go get laid.”

She made it two steps before his laughter rolled over her, deep and warm, because Mad could be a stuffy martyr but he never took himself seriously for long. “Show me how it’s done, Scarlet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Scarlet eased up behind Doc, running one finger up his back a heartbeat before dancing a hip-swinging circle around him to slide her arm around Jade.

Jade wasn’t stingy with her smiles. She laughed and turned her head, and Scarlet got the full force of one as Jade leaned back into her. “Am I not dancing with enough enthusiasm?”

“You’re doing fine, sweetheart. Doc’s technique could use some work, though.”

The man smiled, easy and blurred around the edges, a perfect match to his red eyes and flushed skin. “Scarlet likes to tease me,” he said, his tone lending a lascivious double meaning to the word.

“I think she teases all of us.” Jade eased closer. They were the same height, and the movement thrust her ass against Scarlet’s hips. Gone was the fragile woman whose body had suffered through all the worst rigors of addiction. She was solid now, curves filling out more and more as the weeks passed.

Scarlet wanted to touch her, so she did, drawing one hand slowly up Jade’s thigh. “Sometimes it’s not a tease,” she mused. “It’s a promise.”

Jade shivered under her fingers, turning her head just enough to whisper against Scarlet’s cheek. “So which do you give him? The tease, or the promise?”

“Who, Doc?” Scarlet rolled her hips, urging Jade to move with her. “Nah, he’s a special case. The tease doesn’t work, and he’s not interested in the promise.” She looked up, her eyes locking with his. “Right?”

Tension had straightened his back, but that was the only sign anything she said affected him at all. His mouth curved into a lazy smile, and he shrugged. “You’re not my type. No crime there.”

It stung. Not his type…because she didn’t need him to save her. Scarlet bit her tongue. The words wouldn’t touch him, but they could cut Jade to the bone, and she’d be damned to hell before she did that.

Jade slid her hand over Scarlet’s, twining their fingers together as their hips swayed in a slow, taunting mimicry of sex. “Maybe you haven’t found the right promise,” she murmured, turning them both in a lazy circle.

Mad was watching.

Only watching didn’t cover it. He was fucking them with his eyes, his face shadowed with lust, and Scarlet’s heart skipped a beat. The only thing keeping him from touching them was the space between them, and that could be gone in a few insistent strides.

She’d assumed Mad was carrying some kind of torch for Doc, but the truth hit her in a rush.

It was much, much more complicated.

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

 

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Jade asks Lex to help her escape Sector Two.
Beyond Control

Okay, I cheated a little bit with this graphic to condense the dialogue, and now I’m going to get caught out by posting the full excerpt. But I had to get the most important part–that Lex isn’t the only legend who looms large in Sector Two.

We meet Jade at the lowest moment of her life in Beyond Control, but for years she was the undisputed star of Sector Two, second only to Cerys herself when it came to influence and (as we saw in Beyond Solitude when she lends Mia the money necessary to pay her debts) second to no one when it came to wealth.  She worked within the system as best she could, but learned a hard lesson about the dangers of pushing back too much against corruption when you stand on your own.  Luckily, she’s an O’Kane now, and she’ll never be alone again.

I’m including the whole excerpt here, even the part with Mad, because we get so many questions about what happened between Mad and Jade in this scene and why she refused to sleep with him. (And she did. He would have gotten around to nobly turning her down, of course…but Jade didn’t give him the chance.)  Mad has always wondered why, too… and in Beyond Ruin, he finally gets his answer.

* * *

They turned a corner, and Mad jerked to a stop as a brunette stepped out of an alcove in front of them. She was pretty, in a soft sort of way, with a flowing robe that hugged her curves but hung modestly to the floor.

Mad recognized her. He didn’t release his grip on Lex, but he nodded. “Jade.”

“Maddox.” She turned to Lex and bowed as low as most initiates bowed to the head of their house. “You must be Lex.”

“Yeah.” Lex tipped the girl’s face up with two fingers under her chin. “But I’m not in the mood right now. Sorry, honey.”

She didn’t flinch, but her suddenly slumped shoulders screamed disappointment, along with something worse. Resignation. Jade straightened her back but lowered her gaze. “I only want a few moments. Could I walk with you?”

Damn it. “Five minutes, okay?”

“Thank you.” Even her smile, wide as it was, couldn’t chase the shadows from her eyes. Mad released Lex and fell back half a dozen paces, and Jade took his place. After a few steps, she glanced at Lex again. “You look so much like her. Avery, I mean. She was my dearest friend while I was in training.”

This woman looked years older than Avery. “And you chose to come here instead of taking on a patron?”

“Chose is always an interesting word in this place, isn’t it?” Jade stared ahead, but her voice turned wry. “I chose to excel at my training. I chose to devote every waking moment to becoming extraordinary, thinking it would bring me more latitude. I miscalculated.”

“Let me guess—instead, it turned you into me.” Lex smiled a little. “Overachiever and pariah, all rolled into one.”

Jade laughed softly. “Your greatest sin isn’t that you’re a pariah. It’s that you’re a legend. Legends are dangerous. They have power over people’s imaginations.”

“Then the smart thing would be to stay away from me, right?”

“It’s too late for me.” She lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “I’m a legend, too.”

“Kindred spirits, then.” Lex stopped and leaned against the wall. “Are we chatting, or are you getting around to asking me something?”

Jade folded her hands together with another nervous glance at Mad. He’d stopped, far enough back to be out of easy listening range, but he made no attempt at hiding the fact that he was watching them both.

Wetting her lips nervously, she turned back to Lex. “I know that he helps women escape sometimes. The ones who are pregnant and want to stay that way, or who’ve been hurt.”

The ones no one bothered to go after because they weren’t important or notorious enough to be legends. “If you’re talking to me, it must mean you think Mad can’t help you.”

“When I was seventeen, Cerys needed influence within Eden to keep Sector Two whole. And one of Eden’s councilmen needed…” Jade laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “He needed his ego stroked by a virginal whore. The Rose House specialty, and I have stroked his sad little ego very thoroughly.” She looked away. “Every other weekend, for the past seven years.”

And she wanted out. “That’s a slightly stickier situation than normal. But you know that.”

“I do,” she agreed, still staring at some invisible spot on the wall beside Lex’s head. “Especially since he had me leashed.”

Drugs, the kind meant to keep her compliant. Obedient and helpless. That sort of thing would make a piss-poor leash if getting clean was easy—or even likely. “Your chances are slim, then. You want to try anyway?”

Jade met her gaze, and there was steel in those brown eyes. “I can give Dallas O’Kane plenty of incriminating information. In return, I want a safe place to fight and protection if I make it. I know you can’t answer now, but I need to ask. I need to know.”

It could be a trap, Cerys’s backup plan in case Lex threw her offer back in her face—literally. Or it could have been her way of getting rid of Dallas all along. Spiriting away some councilman’s drug-addicted fuck toy guaranteed trouble for him and his sector. Cerys wouldn’t have to lift a finger to have Dallas out of the picture forever.

But Jade could also simply need help. For every trainee out of the Flower District who was happy with her patron, there were a dozen more who wound up miserable and desperate, and it was that possibility that had Lex whispering, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” Jade stepped back with a sad little smile. “You do look like her. Maybe that makes it easier to trust you. I miss her.”

“So do I.” Lex caught Mad’s gaze and nodded.

Mad swept in, rescuing Lex from further conversation by inserting himself carefully between them. “I’ve got to get you back to Dallas before he skins me,” he murmured. “Jade, a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you, Maddox.” She inclined her head with a teasing smile. “Give my regards to Bren, would you? He’s a fascinating man.”

“I’ll do that.” He sounded almost grumpy, and Mad bustled Lex away with Jade’s soft laughter following them around the corner.

Lex caught his hand and held it tight. “Tried to be noble, huh? No screwing women who can’t say no?”

He scowled. “I’ve got no problem with women who sell sex, but it’s different when they’re groomed to think it’s their only fucking purpose. Hell, you know that.”

“Course I do. So why the long face?”

“She gave me a once-over, said, ‘I suppose that was inevitable,’ and jumped on Bren’s dick.” He huffed out a laugh. “Maybe. God knows what they actually did.”

“Yeah.” Lex brushed back an unruly lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. “If she winds up in Four, you’ll have plenty of time to get to know her. If that’s what you want.”

He snorted. “C’mon, Lex. Not even one joke about my hero complex?”

“Not in the mood,” she said again, smoothing his shirt as they reached the guest quarters. “I’ve decided we need a few more heroes.”

He stopped abruptly and tugged her around to face him, his voice deadly serious. “Shit, Lex. Are you all right? I know it’s been a long day, but…”

Things had gone fucking downhill when she started scaring people with positivity. “I’m ready to go home.”

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Day 10 – Jade Getting her O’Kane Ink
Beyond Jealousy

Jade’s introduction to the series was pretty dramatic back in Beyond Control (and we’ll get to that later!) and it took until book #4 before she was recovered enough to commit to membership. This scene is from Ace’s POV, and shows one of my favorite things–Ace’s process for deciding how he’s going to customize each person’s wrist cuffs.  (Obviously they don’t get any say in the matter–Ace is an artist, damn it.)

Ace can be perceptive about people. In this scene, he’s damn near prescient.

* * *

Jade didn’t like the needles.

Not that she gave any sign—she endured being tattooed with a quiet stoicism practiced enough to be depressing—but Ace knew women. He knew their bodies and all the ways they could tense and tremble, especially when pain was involved.

Jade didn’t like the needles, and he didn’t like putting the hurt on a woman who already seemed terrifyingly fragile. “You still with me, honey? Last thing I want is a gorgeous lady bursting into tears in my chair.”

The corners of her mouth twitched in a whisper of a smile. “You’re right, Trix. He’s a flirt.”

“Told you.” The redhead leaned over, bracing her elbows on the table. “It looks good, Jade. Real good.”

Usually Trix leaning over anything made for a banner day. The redhead had a killer rack and a wardrobe meant to show it off, and Ace had always enjoyed ogling her tits.

Today, he was too hung over to summon more than a sad echo of his usual grin. “So, you two like to talk about me, huh?”

“Don’t start,” Trix advised. “You were drunk as shit last night. Even if we wanted to bask in your attentions today, you’d be no good to either of us.”

“Baby, I’m an O’Kane. My drunk attentions would still rock your world.”

“So I hear.”

It was Trix at her sultriest, flashing a knowing gaze and a teasing pout, and he supposed he was lucky she was still talking to him at all. The O’Kane women were harder to get between than an Eden virgin’s thighs, which meant he’d been getting a lot of cold shoulders since he’d pissed off Rachel.

Last night sure as hell wasn’t gonna fix that.

Swiping the spot he’d just been working on, Ace spent a moment admiring the clean lines swirling across Jade’s brown skin. The O’Kane emblem was always the centerpiece of a member’s cuffs, but the framing had to fit the person. Trix’s were among his favorite—lace and swooping curves, just like her—but something sassy and flirty wouldn’t work with Jade.

She was elegant, and she was tough. Lex had hauled the woman out of Sector Five, drugged out of her skull and so past addicted that even Doc hadn’t thought she’d pull through. Her fragility was skin-deep at best, an illusion that would fade as her health came back.

No lace for her. Nothing delicate. Strong roots twining around the emblem and twisting down, forming an unshakable base. Strong branches rising above, dotted by tiny leaves. He’d spent most of a sleepless night sketching it, and a good part of the morning refining it.

Yeah, he’d been drunk off his ass, but he was still a fucking genius.

Jade tensed as he started the next line, her stoicism wavering, and Ace filled the silence quickly. “So, there must be a party in the offing. Noah and Six haven’t had their big O’Kane welcome yet, and now you’ll be needing one, too.” He shot Trix a meaningful look—Help me distract her—before resuming his work.

Trix winked and stroked Jade’s hair back from her forehead. “You and Ace should help me convince Scarlet to get her band out here for it. Her bass player’s delicious.”

“She’s delicious,” Ace replied, flashing Trix a teasing grin. “Better watch out, Trixie-girl. I bet you’re just her type. I heard she likes her girls all pretty and curvy.”

Trix blushed. “She’s too into power games for me, thanks.”

“Everything’s a power game,” Jade murmured. “Sometimes we don’t realize we’re playing, and sometimes we’re not playing the game we thought…but if there’s trust, there’s power. And if there’s no trust, it’s just a more dangerous version of the game.”

Trix propped her chin on one hand. “Do you really believe that?”

“Mmm. That’s all my training was, at the heart of it. Learning to recognize what game a person wanted to play, even if he didn’t know it himself.”

An elegant way to put it, but Sector Two trained their courtesans to be refined and clever. Ace’s mentor had tailored his lessons to his student, and Ace had learned the blunt version. Almost nobody knows what they really want. Figure it out before they do, and you own them.

Great advice, if you could follow it. The two people he’d trained with had. Jared and Gia could spend five minutes with anyone, man or woman, and know a half-dozen paths straight to their soul. Ace had always preferred games where the rules were set in advance—games where they had to be set in advance, because you couldn’t play them if everyone wasn’t on board.

Maybe if he’d studied better, he’d know what games Rachel wanted to play.

“What if you love someone?”

Jade hesitated, and Ace glanced up in time to catch a flicker of sadness before she schooled her features again. “I imagine it’s a much scarier game with far higher stakes.”

He had blunt words for that concept, too—too fucking much to lose.

* * *

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