Two Sides of Sin (The Venomous Ties Duet #1)
Prologue
JUNE
Iwas seven years old, my feet dangling above the Chapel floorboards, swinging periodically until a warned look from Nana stilled them.
Beside me, my cousin Annie, barely six, leaned her head against my shoulder.
I felt the sticky residue of her thumb against my sleeve, a silent plea for a distraction she knew I couldn't give.
"Behave, June. Watch your cousin," Nana whispered.
It was a small, rural parish where everyone knew everyone’s lineage back three generations.
New blood was rare, and news of the Blackburn boys had been the talk of the sewing circle for weeks.
Twin brothers from the city who arrived to live with their ailing grandmother in the great Manor on the hill.
When the service ended, the congregation spilled out onto the manicured lawn. I gripped Nana’s hand with my right, while my left stayed firmly linked with Annie’s. Our white lace gloves were identical, itchy against our skin as we stepped into the blinding Sunday sun.
"Ahh, there they are," Nana said cheerfully, steering us over to a group near the iron gates.
I looked up, and for the first time in my life, I felt the world tilt. Annie sensed it too, she shrunk back slightly, hiding her face behind my arm.
They were giants compared to us. They possessed a height and a gravity that didn't belong to childhood. They stood side by side, dressed in identical suits, looking like two pillars of stone dropped into a field of wildflowers.
"Good morning, Mrs. Blackburn," Nana chirped. "And these must be the boys. These are my granddaughters, June and little Annie."
One of them stepped forwards. He had a face that looked like it belonged in the stained-glass windows we’d just been staring at, soft, expressive, and framed by hair the colour of midnight. He knelt down until he was at our eye level, a gesture so gentle it made me instantly like him.
"Hello," he said. His voice hadn't fully broken yet; it was a warm, comforting rasp. "I’m Julian."
I stared at him, mesmerised by the intense, pleading kindness in his honey brown eyes.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out two small, amber coloured lollies wrapped in crinkling cellophane.
He handed one to me and held the other out to Annie, who peeked from behind my shoulder with wide, curious eyes.
"For you," he whispered, pressing a butterscotch lollie into each of our palms.
"Thank you," Annie squeaked, her shyness momentarily forgotten for the sake of the sugar. I managed a shy nod, my heart fluttering with a strange, new warmth. But then, my gaze drifted behind him.
The second boy remained perfectly still, a haunting silhouette against the late afternoon sun.
He stood with his arms crossed, his shadow stretching across the grass like a dark void that swallowed the space where Annie and I stood.
He was the colder, more intimidating reflection of the first, his features already hardened into a lethal mask.
He loomed there, holding himself back, perfectly content to just watch. His silence did all the work. With a heavy, unblinking stare, his mismatched eyes peeled back our layers one by one.
One eye was a dark, claustrophobic abyss that offered no reflection.
The other was a jarring fracture of colour, the rich brown iris sliced clean through the centre by a wedge of freezing, pale blue.
It was the kind of heterochromia that looked less like a quirk of nature and more like a violent theft.
Looking at him, a cold shiver traced my spine.
My own eyes were a deep, clear blue, and seeing that same shade trapped in the cage of his stare made me feel exposed.
It was as if he had stolen pieces of my own iris long before we ever met and tried to force them into his own, a permanent mark of the ownership he hadn't yet declared.
He was studying us with a terrifying, clinical focus, as if he were already mapping out the anatomy of our souls and deciding exactly where to make the first cut.
"And that’s Cain," Julian said, his smile faltering for just a second as he glanced back at his brother. "He’s the grumpy one."
Cain didn't disagree with his twin. He just watched us—watched me, specifically, though his eyes occasionally flicked to Annie as if calculating her place in my orbit. He possessed a brooding energy that made the summer sun feel suddenly cold.
In that moment, standing on the church lawn with Annie’s small hand trembling in mine and the taste of butterscotch on my tongue, I didn't know that our fates had been sealed. I didn't know that Julian had just given me his heart, or that Cain was already deciding how he would steal mine.