Page 125 of Lock Up the Darkness

Asher: Move. Now.

I jolted at the sight of him suddenly coming back into the group messenger. I was sure Jonah was actually pissing himself.

His rapid-fire response just lent weight to that.

Jonah: Heading down ASAP, Sire.

I chuckled to myself, then pushed out of my chair, snatched up my phone, then headed on out of my room.

As I passed by Jonah’s room, I could hear the water running in his ensuite. I shook my head to myself, then made my way down the winding staircase.

Approaching the dining room, I could hear Asher and Aurora’s voices, the two of them immersed in some sort of discussion.

The moment I stepped into the room, the subject matter was made clear.

Both their laptops were out on the table with four additional monitors set up that were extending the display, showing specific pages of their intel-pooling program with different things on each screen.

It looked like a damned command center.

“Well, it’s definitely not dinner on the menu,” I commented as I walked to Aurora and planted a kiss on her head that she smiled happily at. I breathed in her strawberry scent.

Asher’s booming voice drew me away all too soon. “The program has completed. We have what we need. We’ve identified the in that Revenant acquired.”

“Jesus Christ, what is it?” I asked, eyeing the monitors and trying to figure it out myself.

I didn’t get very far as the distraction of Jonah walking in interrupted my flow.

He was pulling on a tank over his naked inked chest, his hair wild like he’d been tugging on it as well as his dick. Speaking of, it was hanging out of his jeans, a sheen visible from him recently taking matters into his own hands.

“Pretty, Princess, and Psycho,” he greeted us with a wink. “Nice to have you all together finally.”

“And what are you?” I asked.

“Paragon?”

“Fuck, no. Just stick with Savage. It might not start with a ‘P’, but it goes with the ‘S’ in ‘psycho’. Pretty, Princess, Psycho and Savage.”

Aurora chuckled at that and then gestured at the state of him. “Is that meant to be a non-too-subtle invitation?”

Jonah smirked. “Is it working?”

“Even if it was, now isn’t the time,” Asher said. “Put it away.”

“Fucking animal,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“Hey, now, we all know now that Aurora likes that in her men.”

“Is that what you are, my men?” Aurora shot back.

It was clearly meant as a challenge, but as soon as she put the question out there, it plunged us into a tense, contemplative and somewhat awkward silence.

Thankfully, Asher’s determination to stay on task and get down to business cut through it, and he ordered, “Get over here and pay attention. And, Aurora knows about the dollhouse situation now. I filled her in.”

“No more stonewalling like you employed after she heard that doll reference on those recordings?” I asked. Asher giving up any information at all was hard to believe, let alone freely giving it, and about this, no less, something that really got under his skin—and mine.

“Now I understand the full weight of that threat Carson made toward me to my dad on those recordings and why you guys react so intensely to the word doll,” Aurora said. She eyed me. “And your mom is one?”

“Not all the way,” Jonah answered for me, knowing how much I hated talking about it. “On account that she’s the mother of Samuel’s heir. He treats her with a bit more respect.”

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