Page 75 of Lock Up the Darkness

Unhinged.

He knew it, it was why he hadn’t clued Killian in, why he’d insisted on keeping him out of today’s activities. The night of the Blowout, when Kill had been drunk off his ass, he’d unwittingly revealed that he actually had an affinity for Aurora. I figured it was because she was the first outsider who’d actually seen him, seen beyond the façade and all that. And he needed that, he craved that understanding. At first, he’d just been pissed and enraged at her challenging him, because it had freaked him out. But then he’d recognized it for what it really was. A fucking rarity. He actually cared about her.

And so Asher was being careful what Kill was told and involved in when it came to Aurora now. So Kill thought she was just coming here so we could pool our intel on Carson Monroe and Revenant, to get the ball rolling basically. If he knew about this, he wouldn’t be down for it, and he’d interfere, which would lead to a whole lot of shit between him and Asher.

I tensed as Asher started to circle her when she declined making the first move.

It seemed she was testing the waters, wanting to gauge him first.

Smart strategy.

Normally.

It wouldn’t work with him, though.

Not with the way he fought.

Nobody could get a handle on him.

There was no specific pattern to it, no set moves, no single fighting style.

He never fought the same way twice.

The guy had learned close to a dozen different fighting styles and mastered them all. He’d been training since he was nine years old—for the last fifteen years. His father had insisted on it, on his heir being strong. But Asher had continued on for his own need and interest since our high school days, becoming obsessive about it.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Aurora got impatient—and probably creeped out—by his predatory circling, and made the first move after all.

She swept her leg at the back of his knee as he was turned from her a little.

Underhanded, but needed when it came to Asher.

The slick bastard sensed it before it made contact and spun so fast it was almost a blur, and slammed his palm into her chest.

She choked and stumbled back.

Never one to give an opponent the time to recover, he threw his fist.

Impressively, despite his speed, she managed to block it with her palm.

But he was there in the next second, bringing his knee up to do some serious damage to her solar plexus.

She brought her arm down, deflecting it.

He grinned, clearly as impressed as I was that she could hold her own against him.

Well, for the time being.

She didn’t know it, but he was just playing right now, just getting started.

She tried to land a strike, but he was there blocking it with his forearm, then stopping a knee to the gut by bringing his shin up as a shield. She gritted her teeth when her fist made contact with hard bone.

A push kick from him knocked her back.

He followed it through, leaping up and executing one of his fancy and fucking dangerous spinning kicks.

It connected brutally with the side of her face, making it snap to the side. Blood exploded on her lip and as she wiped it away with the back of her hand, a trail was left in its wake.

Shit.

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