Page 87 of Burn It Down

I scanned the area and located a shadowed figure emerging from the tree line.

Scourge.

He strode toward the mess of my dad, Asher, and Jonah, his gun at the ready in one hand and a blade in another.

“I told you I’d stop you if you went too far, son.”

Asher snarled at him.

“Let up right now, or I won’t just put you down out here, I’ll cage you.”

“Fuck, Aaron,” Jonah groused, gritting his teeth as he fought to hold back Asher pushing against my dad.

“I’ll imprison you somewhere nobody will find you. If that’s the beast you want to be, beyond all sense of reason and control, that’s how you’ll be treated. Make your choice. Show me you have control, that Lan just triggered you, or I’ll put you down and make damn sure you miss your opportunity to take out your father. All these years dreaming of that victory and you’ll miss it.”

Asher snarled again.

But then I saw him pull the blade away.

He looked up at the sky and roared out into the night, pain and fury blending into one awful, broken sound.

God, it was agonizing to witness him like this.

He pushed off my dad, forcing Jonah back in the process.

Aaron was there snatching the blade in the very next moment.

I rushed to my dad and helped him up to his feet.

“Are you okay?” I asked, looking him over frantically.

He wrapped an arm around me. “Fine, angel. Just superficial.”

As he held me to him, I looked out to see Scourge and Jonah all over Asher, fretting over him, talking, trying to keep him rooted to this plane, it looked like.

Through it, he looked out at me.

The blackness fell away and then those swirling silver eyes were blazing back at me.

His gaze dropped to my skull ring that I hadn’t taken off once since we’d been apart, and he grimaced.

I saw it then.

He hadn’t stopped when I’d called out to him, when I’d tried to reach him, when I’d even pleaded with him… because he didn’t feel it.

He didn’t feel our connection.

It was compromised for him.

Because he thought it was compromised for me.

“Why? Why would you do this? You broke your promise.”

“Aurora, I needed—”

“You broke my trust.”

“That’s not—he wanted this. Your father manipulated me into a no-win position.”

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