Page 100 of Scars Run Deep

So close.

Aurora tensing against me had me pulling from my thoughts. I turned to her and followed her gaze to a crowd of onlookers over by one of the benches in the quad that included Liza Adams and Becca Wild, along with half the cheerleading team. If looks could kill, Aurora would be dust.

But she fucking wasn’t.

And she never would be.

She wouldn’t be made to feel threatened or uncomfortable either.

Not on my watch.

“They’re beneath your concern,” I told her, stroking her cheek to bring her attention to me and away from them. “Spineless and toothless, all of them.”

“I’m not concerned,” Aurora responded.

So many things she just let roll off her back.

Even when we’d been on opposite sides and I’d punished her, she’d just taken it all in her stride, barely being affected by any of it.

But nobody could be like that all the time, every moment of every day.

Her phone buzzed before I could speak more to it, and she pulled it out from the pocket of her sexy cropped leather jacket with all the studs on it.

She had a fuzzy pink scoop neck sweater on today, a gray and black scarf around her neck because it was getting a little colder out now we were coming into November for real. And she had a pair of bootcut black jeans on that molded to her hot little ass in a majorly cock-teasing way. She wasn’t wearing combat boots, just a pair of block heels. Her white-blonde hair was down in loose waves flowing down her back. And she had that smoky-eye makeup look going on that I liked—and that made Jonah lose his shit whenever he saw it on her. He’d almost jumped her at breakfast this morning before Ash had inadvertently interrupted, asking for his help with some issue with his Beamer.

She was really relaxing in our company now. The sweater was one piece of evidence, breaking up her black-on-black look. Also, not wearing the combat boots all the time. She’d even worn what Ash called her Barbie-pink robe around the house last night. And then she’d had Jonah sitting on her bed with her a couple of nights back—one of our off nights from the takedowns—the two of them reading and discussing their comics. To top it off, she’d actually ridden on the back of my bike with me, when that had seemed completely off the table for the longest time because of trust issues.

It had all started to escalate in the best way and change faster than before since we’d given her the skull ring.

It was like she’d finally seen the proof, or realized right up close, that we were there for her, that we were a team, that she was ours, for real.

I fucking loved it.

And I wasn’t gonna let anything upset that or make her walk back on all that progress.

Especially not outside influences and petty, insignificant ones at that.

As she checked the notification and scrolled to her texts, I saw her jaw tighten, her eyes narrow, before her gaze discreetly flicked over to the girls, and then she swiftly managed to school her expression again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Everything’s fine.”

The hell it was. “Show me then.”

“What?”

“Aurora.”

She sighed and turned her phone toward me.

I was grinding my teeth in the next moment as I took in the texts that had come in.

Liza: Infidels whore.

Liza: We want you to remember that you don’t belong here and once the novelty wears off, they’ll see it too and drop you like trash. Especially Asher. He gets bored easily. It’s coming up to that time now for him. You’ll see.

Liza: Best get out now before you’re all used up and word spreads beyond the borders all about the slutty little bitch that you are.

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