Page 36 of Scars Run Deep

The unflappable Asher Monroe, the great and almighty God, was actually affected by my words. He’d always been so secure, and even proud, of what he was. A stone-cold puppet master who traded on the dark side and was able to go the distance with that twisted and merciless side of him, to become an unrestrained beast in order to bend the world to his will, and to call on the full breadth of the monster within him to make it so.

But now, being called on that clearly bothered him.

Yeah, he didn’t like it one bit. So much so that he couldn’t hide it.

He took a step toward me, the menace in it clear. “You asked me what I thought I knew earlier. And you’re always so insistent on being given the answers you seek, so let me tell you without any preamble. Reading my written note meant for her, the robe and slippers, the stuffed toy, stalking her the night she was with Jonah at Fusion and wanting to swoop in and play her white knight, following at her heels every chance you get… you call it affection and care, but really it’s crossed the line into you becoming a little bitch for her.”

I really had struck a nerve. Asher didn’t lash out. Not so directly, nor in an obvious way. Yet, here he was wading in the mud, slinging it right at me.

“Then again, that’s how it started off, isn’t it? With her literally having you by the dick.”

I sneered and somehow managed to keep on track, telling him real calm and collectedly, “Her coming to you for comfort is dangerous. You indulging it is beyond that.”

“I told you I believe you can survive this. But you won’t come out of it unscathed. It’ll drag you into the dark. It’s already in you to begin with. Jonah’s got a feel for all of that and he’s never wrong. He saw it in you. It wants out. And the thing with this place, with us, is it’ll feed off that, drag it out of you, and it won’t stop until it’s all that you are,” he recited.

I started. “Those are my words.”

“Yes, I’m well aware. To Aurora.”

“You weren’t there when that conversation took place. In fact, as I found out later you were fully immersed in dominating Jonah at that time.”

“And yet.”

“So, you’re not only tapping my phone, you’re going way beyond that.”

“I already told you that I’m monitoring you closely.”

“You didn’t have Bryce or one of his guys watching, I would’ve felt that. Hell knows, you spent long enough ramming those lessons down my throat.”

“It was necessary. Spotting a tail, evading it, knowing who’s within your immediate surroundings… it’s a vital skill to cultivate in our world. And you didn’t recognize it at the time, it merely bored you. When you’re bored, the outcome is reflected in poor results. Hence, it taking so ridiculously long to teach you.”

“Nice try at redirecting, but that’s not happening this time. You had… what… parabolic microphones or something? The security cameras don’t have sound.”

“Something like that. It doesn’t matter.”

“Like fuck it doesn’t.”

“That’s a shame.”

“What is?”

“You were doing such a great job of staying on track—for once. You didn’t even rise to my aggression. Yet, the moment you feel threatened, the cooler-heads-prevail approach flies right out the window. Every fucking time, Killian.”

Piece of—I slammed my hand into his chest.

He was clearly still medicated because it knocked him back against the opposite wall of the corridor and he had to throw his good hand out to get his balance.

His eyes flashed.

But before he could do shit about it, I took advantage of his weakened state and used it for all it was worth, grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and jerking him to me, forcing him to really hear and feel me as I growled, “If you comforted her by telling her that it was okay to do what she did to those Heretics in that basement, it will normalize it. It will push her off the edge she’s currently teetering on, push her down the wrong fucking side. You might think that’s what you want because she’ll fall straight to you, immerse herself in the darkest of the dark right along with you. It won’t work like that. She’s got a spark in her still. It’s a part of her. If you snuff it out, she won’t be her anymore. That balance is what makes her who she is, the woman we’ve all come to love being a part of us here.” My hand fisted in his shirt shook with my fervor as I drove it home to him. “And you know, Ash, you fucking well know that there’s no going back once you succumb to it, once you give yourself over to that darkness all the way.”

All sadistic amusement and that haughty know-it-all bullshit of his vanished, and then he was telling me in an even tone, “If I’d condemned what she’d done, it would have worsened the situation.”

“What?”

He grasped my hand on his shirt. Not painfully as I’d expected, but firmly, radiating his urgency as he explained, “We’re starting a war. If I, of all people, had condemned her for calling on that beast side she has, she’d second guess that part of her. She’d likely try to bury it at a time when we need everything in our collective arsenals to survive what’s coming. I told her a few days ago that we can’t be on the fence, that our conviction needs to be steady, that we need to be sure in ourselves and what we’re fighting for so the Head Infidels don’t prey on any insecurities. You know they will. You’ve lived it. We all have.”

“I get that, but encouraging it is going beyond that and—”

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