Page 87 of Scars Run Deep

Jonah chuckled, then took another bite of his omelet, almost done now, while the three of us had barely started the breakfast he’d made. Aurora and me, because we’d been distracted reviewing the data. And, Killian, because he couldn’t sit still for more than a few seconds as usual when it came to intense concentration and high-level thinking.

He’d now decided he needed to get up yet again to retrieve ketchup from the fridge.

“Because we can’t,” I snapped back.

He jolted, but then focused on studying the ketchup bottle. He fingered the date. As if Jonah would ever allow anything to expire inside our fridge—or anywhere in the kitchen. Killian damn well knew that.

“Whatever you did to get him to study with you for hours at a time, I’d do it again now, or Asher’s gonna blow a gasket,” Jonah warned Aurora, gesturing with his eyes at Killian.

First, it had been another cup of coffee, then it had been more sugar, more milk, followed by him then deciding to make a protein shake and fire up the blender, disturbing the entire process with the aggravating, abrasive noise. And now, this.

He brought it back to the island and settled on his stool beside Aurora.

Then he opened the ketchup bottle and started squeezing it, making yet another aggravating sound as he tried to force out what little was left of it onto his omelet.

I snatched it from him, then shook it brutally hard, pouring out enough ketchup on the side of his plate to end this infuriating debacle.

As I slammed it down beside me, Aurora reached up and stroked his hair, telling him in a soft and patient tone, “I’ll be fine doing this. I promise.”

Hmm. So there was more to it than the usual with him. And she’d either recognized the root cause from his antsy and restless behavior alone, or they’d talked about it earlier when he’d taken a bath with her, while I’d been preparing this and Jonah had been making breakfast.

I hoped it was the latter, because if she’d become that intuitive to his emotions and behavior, if she could read him that well, then it would only be a matter of time before she was able to manage it with Jonah and me too. I couldn’t have that. For a whole slew of reasons, but the most prominent one right now being that I couldn’t risk her finding out that, not only had her dad been the one to intervene in our battle with the Heretics a few nights ago, but that I’d actually met with him and kept it all from her.

The fucking bastard trapping me had really gotten under my skin, so much so that it had blown right past enraged and almost had me unleashing.

I didn’t take well to having my hand forced.

And he’d done more than that.

He’d trapped me.

That was another fucking level for me, given my history with that sort of thing.

It hadn’t escaped my notice that it might have been his intent, to work me up emotionally, to destabilize me. If I wasn’t on the ball, it would make it a hell of a lot easier for him to come for Aurora, and he likely also assumed it would make me malleable.

He’d called my father out on possessing an ego that threatened to lead him down a detrimental path, but Lance was far from immune to it himself.

“What if you’re not?” I heard Killian asking Aurora.

She cupped his face. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“I do, but—”

“And you respect me?”

“Yes, of course, and—”

“You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve seen that I can hold my own.”

“You can do a whole lot more than that,” Jonah cut in.

Slowly, yet reluctantly, Killian gave a nod.

She released him and took a sip of her orange juice, then said, “Besides, this is what I came down here to Hexwood to do.” Her gaze dropped to her ring and she smiled, then looked out at each of us in turn as she added, “Although, things have definitely evolved beyond that now and there’s the three of you too.” She kissed the ring, making me smile, before she continued on to Killian, “The point is, I’ve been preparing for this for a long time. I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a while.”

“I don’t doubt you can do this, that you’ve got the skills and know-how, and that you can kick ass with the best of them. But what if you lose control like… like last time?”

She paled at his words, at his challenge.

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