Page 85 of Lock Up the Darkness

His eyes lit up. “Yeah. Exactly that.”

“Yeah,” I said, weariness starting to take me over again. I sank deeper into my pillows.

“This really isn’t what I expected,” he said, gesturing around the room at the pastel-pink and purple sheets and pillows, the frilly cushions over on my dresser, my fuzzy bunny slippers.

“Well the all-black no-nonsense look means business. But when I’m here in my bedroom, I’m free to relax and let all that go for a while.”

“To get back to the other side of you that you’ve had to try to bury.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, my tiredness growing. “I should kill it soon.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous. Weakness.”

“It’s a part of you and there’s nothing weak about you, Aurora.”

My eyes were growing heavy as I murmured, “Maybe you can take me to the petting zoo before I have to kill that part of me for good?”

“It’s a date.”

I giggled and slurred, “Date? That’s really something for us. So normal. And we’re not normal. Are we?”

His fingers slid over mine and then he was giving my hand a squeeze. “I’m sure we can manage it, just for one day.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The next thing I knew, he was pulling the blanket up over my chest to my chin. “Get some sleep. I won’t wake you again.”

“Okay,” I murmured, closing my eyes.

Before sleep took me, I felt the bed move as he rustled around.

Then I heard some dialing, then his voice whispering through the room.

“Ash. Yeah, I’m here. Of course I took the backroads. Parked a quarter mile away too, just to keep out of sight of any eyes on. She pulled some stitches. Yeah, she is tough, but she’s still injured. That means vulnerable. The security system on her home was too easy to breach. Because she’s the real security, obviously. But now you did what you did, she can’t be for another couple of weeks at least. With that motherfucker watching, he could use this as an opportunity. We can’t risk it. You need to make arrangements. Now.”

That was all I managed to hold out to hear before sleep took me.

20

~Killian~

“Admit it! You made a mistake!”

The fucker just stood there staring right back at me completely unaffected, as though I wasn’t roaring at him and right up in his fucking face.

At least on the surface.

There were always so many layers to peel back with Asher fucking Monroe.

The complicated bastard loved it that way so that people never knew what they were getting until it was too late, until he’d drawn them deep into his web and trapped them right up close with no chance of extricating themselves unless he deigned to bestow mercy. And if he ever did, it was just to fuel his own plans and overarching strategies.

“No mistake was made,” he said, eyeing me over the rim of his espresso cup as he continued to sip at it.

“You stabbed her!”

“Necessary.”

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