Page 156 of Lock Up the Darkness

I ushered them inside and closed the door behind us.

Both their gazes went to Asher asleep in his bed.

“You did that?” Jonah asked, keeping his voice low. “You actually got him to sleep?”

I shrugged. “I suggested it. He looked exhausted.”

Him and Killian exchanged a look.

“What?” I asked.

“For one, he doesn’t take orders. Or suggestions,” Killian said in a whisper.

“And he was in obsessive mode for the last few days,” Jonah explained. “Trying to break through that is virtually impossible.”

“It’s just him crashing after pushing it too far,” I told them.

Another look passed between them. They didn’t believe it.

“Hmm, all right, Princess,” Jonah said, dropping it in that easy way of his.

“Are you okay?” Killian asked, stepping up to me and fingering my hair.

I eyed his chest, the bandages hidden but still so awfully prominent in my mind. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“You already did, you were already there for me.”

“That’s not a one-time thing, especially not with this.”

“I know, but I didn’t get to ask you earlier because you were too focused on me and you wouldn’t hear of it being about anything else.”

“I’m fine. I wasn’t the one who got hurt.”

He grimaced. “My father touched you, Aurora.”

Asher’s words about not leaving things festering or unresolved nagged at me, willing me to unload the truth. But I couldn’t. Not with this. And it wasn’t like I’d allow it to impact me when we went into battle against the Infidels. It was separate, nothing to do with it. I just needed some time to shove it down and bury it.

“It was nothing, just very brief,” I responded, fighting to keep the tightness out of my voice.

“It was prominent enough for me to see it halfway across the field.”

I waved my hand dismissively. “Just a touch on the leg to rile all of us up.”

Jonah caught my eye. “It wasn’t just the leg.”

Killian’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t looked surprised, and that rage was tempered, which meant Jonah had already told him what exactly had happened. Dammit.

“Even so,” I managed.

The memory slammed into me without warning because of all this fucking talk about it.

His long, creepy skinny fingers slid under my skirt and dipped under my thong. I jolted in my seat as they started probing my soft flesh. In my peripheral vision, I saw Jonah fighting everything in him not to react. His face was a deep shade of raging red, the veins in his neck popping, his fists clenched and threatening to crush the very seat supporting him.

“Don’t do this,” Jonah growled.

Samuel smirked at him, knowing he was trapped, knowing we both were. “Come now, I’m just ensuring this pretty little thing is worthy of being a whore to Carson and Reed’s sons.”

His thumb brushed over my clit, making me grit my teeth.

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