Page 105 of Scars Run Deep

“He stabbed you, Aurora.”

“And I stabbed him.”

“To protect yourself. In self-defense.”

She winced. “I know his methods are harsh sometimes.”

“Harsh is putting it nicely. Really nicely.”

“I know and I get it, believe me. But his overarching goal is to protect you—us. There’s a lot of darkness there engulfing him, but it’s not all that he is. I think you know that, I think you see it. He just… he has this way of putting you on the defensive a lot. Your two conflicting personalities also naturally clash to begin with.”

“And his secretive nature, all that subterfuge and puppet mastery.”

“As leader, he carries a different burden, Killian.”

“So, you’re fine with it then? The secrets?”

“It bothers me too. I’m just trying to ease the tension between the two of you, because it is what it is. Until this is all over, he’s gonna keep to his harshness, that brutality, the no-nonsense commander-in-chief mindset.” She laid her hand on my arm. “But, at the end of the day, that’s what will help to keep us alive.”

Damn, he had her. Asher fucking had her. He was in her head and other places too.

She was advocating for him. Worse—trusting him.

She even thought she was seeing a soft side to him.

“You really think he’s keeping his promise about the whole transparency thing? And as I ask this question, take note that I’m being really fucking generous to him by not including the Caleb thing in it, him taking down a whole doll auction with this guy years back without telling J and me. Because it was years back, and because despite what it might seem like, I’m trying to be a little easier on him like you asked me to be after that blowup in the kitchen during that strategizing meeting.”

She reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I know you are. I see you trying, toning it down. And he does too. Although it’s hard and not his thing to speak to it outright, it’s in his actions. His appreciation, I mean. When Jonah and I were doing our comic thing the other night, Asher didn’t retreat to his art studio and pull his whole loner routine. He came to the salon and sat with you to watch that Transporter marathon with you. He even made you a bowl of ice-cream.” She let go as she fixed her laptop into place, inching it at the perfect angle, then bringing out her mouse too. As she fired up a new page for this class and titled it, saving it into her intricately arranged file system, she told me, “As for the transparency thing, he’s clearly struggling, but he’s still continuing to try. He has to go against the grain and fight long-established instincts and his paranoid need for absolute control. It’s a difficult line to walk between maintaining that control over every situation and relinquishing enough to live up to the promise he made us, to function as a team, rather than the dictatorship that you guys had been living under beforehand.”

The professor walked in, a few stragglers following in her wake, and the class started to get underway really soon after, stalling our conversation.

I looked over at Aurora listening attentively, typing away and taking notes.

It was unbelievable to be here sitting next to her, actually being with her, in a public setting.

I shifted my weight and wrapped my arm around her.

She smiled at me, then frowned as she watched me typing with just one hand.

I grinned at the impressed look all over her face.

“That’s right, darlin’, I have my moments,” I whispered to her.

“Believe me, that’s well known at this point.”

“Wanna go riding later and I’ll show you some of my stunting I’ve been teasing?”

Her eyes lit up. “Finally,” she whispered back excitedly. “Let’s do it.”

“Perfect.”

I relaxed into the class then.

Or tried to.

Beneath the surface, though, all that stuff I’d dredged up about Asher was nagging at me.

Transparency.

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