Page 86 of Scars Run Deep

She looked between us, frowning, not knowing where we were going with this.

When her eyes darted back to Asher’s hand, he opened it to reveal… nothing.

He grinned.

“Seriously?” Kill groused.

“Patience, darling boy,” Asher teased playfully.

Then he swept his hand over his palm, cupped it, twisting and shit, doing his hand magic.

I smiled as it had Aurora chuckling.

With one final flourish, a lot like a jazz hand thing, it appeared right on his palm.

The skull ring.

The symbol of our brotherhood.

The familial unit we’d built beyond our own blood.

The tight knit circle of trust and loyalty it symbolized.

“Is this…” Her gaze darted to each of us, our rings, and I saw the moment the realization set it. “Wow,” she breathed.

Asher took her left hand and carefully slid the ring onto her index finger.

“Perfect fit,” Kill said. “Just like you. With us.”

“You’re a part of us now, Aurora,” Asher told her.

Emotion swam in her eyes.

She smiled at each of us in turn, beaming at us.

As Asher ran his fingers over her ring, she clasped them tightly to her as she made him a promise that Kill and I had taken until tonight to realize he needed so badly, “I’m not planning to go anywhere, even after the mission is done. I’m not leaving you.” She sucked in an unsteady breath as that emotion got the best of her and she confessed, “I can’t.”

I smiled and watched the tension leave Asher.

Kill looked like a kid on Christmas morning again.

As he nuzzled against her, Asher enveloped her on the other side. I moved over and wrapped myself around him, the four of us relaxing with one another and just taking in the significance of the moment, and the big deal it was that Aurora Blackthorn was now an official part of us.

There was no going back now.

No escape.

She was ours.

Come hell or highwater.

12

~Asher~

“Why can’t we just go with the first two plans Revenant worked out right here in these files? Then replicate them for the remaining eight?” Killian asked, as he darted around the kitchen, while me, Aurora, and Jonah sat up at the island, reviewing the printouts I’d made of the files on the flash drive we’d obtained from Olivia.

Aurora smiled at me from across the island.

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