Page 1 of The Other Side of Green

Prologue

I don’t know when she became Lyra Bird to me.

Maybe it was the time she peered over the fence, a frown on her face when she saw my bruises, her lip caught between her teeth as my name shouted like a curse torn through the sunshine and blue sky.

Maybe it was the time she brought me lemonade, her dress a matching color, and told me it was to make me smile, not knowing that smiling through darkness took more than sheer will of thought and self-belief.

Maybe it was the nights she played her violin, her chin set with determination as she tried to blot out the cries and shouts that darkened my life.

Maybe it was the time I first brushed her lips, dry warmth and a delicate sweep of skin that made my stomach tighten with the fire of hell as my soul tore straight in two.

Lyra Bird. My bird who can fly. The one with wings of gold and song that can lift my heart and save my soul.

When the flames of desire consume me and drag me down, I know my Lyra Bird will soar up high and search me out, sweeping low into the vestiges of my own personal hell to save me from myself.

Lyra Bird, with grace and ease she can save us all.

Lyra Bird. The only woman to set me free.

Chapter One

Jack ~ Four Years Ago

“Hey, kid.”

I chuckled as Lyra’s feet picked up pace down the sidewalk. The slap of her sandals echoed, harmonizing with a red-winged blackbird's determined song and shouts of laughter from the playground a block down.

“Lyra!” I called again.

“Go away, Jack.” She scowled at me from under bronzed curls, shooting me with her best glare as she glanced over her shoulder. I smirked as she tripped over a paving slab. Sighing and with pink blotched cheeks, she turned her hands on her hips.

“What’ve I done this time?” I held my hands up in an instant surrender at her scowl.

“Nothing.” Cue an eye-roll and another dramatic sigh and shrug of her shoulders.

I grinned as a lightness eased the tightness in my chest. “You say nothing, which I have on good authority is code for everything.” I expected her to laugh, but her face snapped shut, eyes flashing. “Okay. So, what haven’t I done?”

She let out another deep sigh, almost groaning. “Nothing.”

“Luca?”

“Nothing.”

“Grams?”

Another eyeball roll. “Nothing.”

I rocked back on my heels. “You know you’re making conversation hard right now? For it to work we both have to speak, normally one after the other, back and forth.” I gestured between us, painfully aware of the space.

“Don’t converse with me then,” she snapped. Ha, I had her. I flashed her a shit eating grin.

“Oooh, converse. You been reading those fancy books again, Lyra?”

“If by fancy you mean it has words and not pictures of naked women, then yes, I have.”

I snorted a laugh. “Did Luca leave his magazine in the bathroom again? He can’t help himself. He’s a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in a growing man’s body.”

“It’s disgusting.”