Page 136 of Lock Up the Darkness

I was disappointed that Kill wasn’t here. He deserved to be here sharing in the glory.

But I was also glad for him. He’d found a way to escape having to strap on his mask for a whole night, something he could pull off right on the eve of a big game with the whole I-need-to-focus-up schtick. It was the only reprieve the poor bastard had. And he was off engaging in his special kind of therapy right now, out at a petting zoo he liked outside of town. Being around animals soothed him, just like being away from all this bullshit did. A damper had been put on it this time, though, because he’d told me that he’d really wanted to take Aurora out there with him. But with what needed to be done, it hadn’t been possible. He hadn’t even been able to ask her. At least it was functioning as a break for him. He deserved the peace, big time.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Aurora, because she hadn’t been able to escape any of it tonight.

Not only was she working among it all, she was facing off with a whole room full of people who thought she was our whore.

As I zeroed in on her, I saw her notice their nasty looks as well as some lascivious ones, but ignore it all, and take it in her stride.

I smiled to myself. She was something else.

She wasn’t bouncing around like the other servers or bartenders either, looking like she was run ragged, or out of sorts. Nah, her movements were sure, streamlined and strategic.

Utterly controlled. Just like Asher.

A sick part of me wanted to see if that would hold up under my kind of pressure, if her golden feathers would ruffle for me, or if she’d be able to stay steady just like Asher. She played it close to the vest, but I’d seen signs more and more since she’d been under our roof of her being so much like him. Sometimes it was just a spark here and there that she quickly snuffed out, like she couldn’t admit the darker truth, even to herself. And, fuck, I wanted to fan the flames.

Kill wouldn’t like that one bit. He was trying to keep her from the edge of that darkness, whether he realized it or not. He was bringing the light and chivalry to her life, real care and adoration. Fuck, he’d even wanted to take her on an actual date tonight. He was trying to offset Asher’s overwhelming presence that influenced and corrupted everything and everyone who stayed in his vicinity for too long. An impossible task, if you asked me, but Pretty had fallen hard so there was no getting him to listen to reason where that was concerned.

“Don’t make her uncomfortable. It’s only a show.”

I gritted my teeth as Asher’s words played on my mind. His orders, actually.

I wanted it to be anything but a show. Since that night, we’d all been pulled away from each other with other pressing matters, so there hadn’t been a round two. So, all I’d been left with was the memory of her losing her shit all over my cock, taking me deep into her hot little mouth. But even better than that—yeah, somehow that had been proven possible—was the way she’d shattered for us, where she’d just completely let go and given in to the part of her I’d gotten a taste of the night of the Blowout.

Raw.

Split wide open.

Unleashed.

It was some heady shit and it called to the very depths of me. I’d spent my life around masks and facades, everything so fucking fake. And during sex, the down and dirty no-holds-barred fucking, was when people most often let all that slip away and you saw the real them. It wasn’t just about the act of getting off, of shooting off inside some tight hole—it was seeing that.

It was the only time when things felt real to me.

Free.

Of course, there was a very obvious loophole to Asher’s orders concerning the public show I needed to make with Aurora tonight. As long as she wasn’t uncomfortable, it was all good. I guessed the ball was in her court then. Aside from my thing with Sire, that was a foreign concept to me. But I’d been all too into it that night of the Blowout when she’d tried to own me. I’d be down for it again, her trying to top me from the bottom. Or, hell, just all out topping me hardcore. My cock agreed, thickening in my jeans. The spot of violence that was gonna come right after with Hollis might’ve had a little something to do with it too.

Speaking of that motherfucker, I zoned in on him from my position in the shadows at the edge of the lot.

He was sly, I’d give him that.

Slimy was more accurate.

But he could play his part well, either way. When Asher had enlisted him for his test a few weeks back, he’d slipped into the role well. And he was doing that here playing the spy as he very discreetly kept his eye on Aurora’s every move through the bar. He was on his phone casually sipping at a glass of scotch in a corner booth right at the back, feigning casual disinterest to the goings on around him.

He wasn’t in Aurora’s section, but I saw her giving him a glance here and there, obviously on high alert given her encounter with him last time. The fact he’d been welcomed back into the bar after that screamed of Carson’s influence all over it. Seeing him walk in, Aurora must’ve put two and two together, although the sum total coming to Asher, me, and Kill, thinking we’d allowed it and that he was safe to be around now. She had run with it, adapting well, as per one of her strengths.

I considered texting her and giving her the details that Asher had discovered earlier, warning her that he wasn’t safe to be around. Not one fucking bit. But that risked her reacting and possibly doing some damage before he delivered the message to Carson that we needed him to.

Nah, it would be fine as it was. I’d be taking care of the piece of shit real soon anyway.

I shored up my focus and slipped into Savage mode, then stormed toward the old college haunt.

As I threw open the door, a cacophony of noise hit me, loud voices all blending to one, thumping hard rock pulsing through the place, laughing, drunk giggling.

All that came to an abrupt and definitive halt when I took a couple of steps inside.

---