As the flames finally disappeared, Harper’s stomach dropped, and her heart slammed against her ribs. There was no building. No Larkin. No Tanner. Not even a single body. Only black and red ashes. No, no, no, no—
“You both look like shit.”
Harper tracked Knox’s gaze and saw that Larkin and Tanner, no longer in his hellhound form, were staggering toward them. Relieved to see them alive, Harper wanted to smile. Instead, she heard herself growling, “I thought you were fucking dead!”
“When the flames eased off, I flew us out of there,” the harpy explained.
“You’re okay?”
Tanner waved a dismissive hand at Harper’s concern. “It’s not like it’s the first time he almost killed us.”
Harper really didn’t know what to do with that comment.
“Wings, huh?” Knox whispered his fingers over them. “Soft. Hot.” His memories were blurred a little by the rage that had consumed him, but…“I remember you cracking through the shield. My power spilled through into your mind.” And gave her wings whatever push they had needed to finally surface.
“That was a really stupid but ballsy move, Harper,” berated Tanner.
Harper rubbed her nose against Knox’s. “The flames can’t hurt me – not inside, not outside. Can we go home now?”
Knox kissed her forehead. “Whatever you want.”
Lying on his side on the bed, Knox watched his mate putter around in just panties and a tank top as she spoke to Jolene on her cell. Maybe another person might have wanted a little private time to assimilate the fact that their life had been threatened and they’d just watched their mate almost destroy everything around them. Not Harper. She’d stayed close to him since they returned to the mansion; had even insisted he join her in the bath. Maybe it was her way of reassuring him that he still didn’t scare her – or, at least, not enough to make her leave.
“Grams, I’m fine, I promise. Of course I got out of the house by myself, don’t insult me. There’s nothing left standing for you to reduce to rubble. According to Levi and Keenan, Isla’s demons have left, and the mayhem in the hotel is over.” She let out a heavy, put-out sigh. “Fine, put him on.” A long pause. “Hello, Lucian. I’m fine. Knox came for me. He’s not a deranged psychopath.”
She crossed her eyes, making Knox smile.
“I will come see you tomorrow, okay? Then you can see for yourself that I’m fine. Right now, I’m tired and I need sleep – so do you, if the rumors I heard about you and Raini’s aunt are true. La, la, la, I didn’t say I wanted to know if it was true. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” Puffing out a long breath, she placed her cell on the drawers.
“Come here.” A growl of contentment rumbled up his chest as she slipped under the covers and fit her body snug against his. She was such a little thing, yet she’d robbed him of his infamous control. But she’d also given it back to him when he’d been bloated with power and overtaken by rage.
Harper’s eyes fell closed as his hand roamed over her, both possessive and reverent. As if he just had to touch her. “I take it Isla’s dead.”
“She ate an orb of hellfire.” His inner demon smiled at the memory. “I got to the practitioners’ house just as you stabbed ‘Kendra’ through the neck.”
Harper opened her eyes. “Her real name is Jeanna. She’s very much dead.” As something occurred to Harper, she clicked her fingers. “Oh shit, the demon that took me, I think his name is Jacques, was waiting—”
“In the woods. Tanner killed him.”
“Good.” As he traced a half-healed stab wound, she assured Knox, “I’m okay, really.” Most of her injuries had already fully healed.
“But you might not have been. The practitioners could have killed you before I even knew you were gone, if that had been their goal.”
“But they didn’t kill me. And I’m not easy to kill.”
Slipping his hand under her tank top, Knox closed it around her breast. “It would be better if you were much harder to kill.”
She arched into his proprietary grip as he cupped and shaped her breast almost idly. “It would.” When his hand slid to her back and traced the markings there, she smiled. “Even if I do say so myself…my wings are seriously cool.” They had sort of melted back into her skin about twenty minutes after they’d returned home. She’d have to get some advice from her relatives on how to control them.
“They are,” he agreed. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they were the same colors as the flames of hell. What that meant, he didn’t know. Maybe it was just a mere reflection of his power. Maybe it was nothing to be concerned about. But while his fear for her was still fresh, he couldn’t relax.
“I’m safe now,” she soothed when she heard his teeth grinding.
He touched his forehead to hers. “When I realized you were gone, I almost lost my fucking mind.” Intellectually, he’d known that he’d lose control if she was ever taken from him, but he hadn’t been prepared for the blind fear and sheer panic that tormented him. “I haven’t felt fear in a very long time.”
Harper pressed a kiss to his mouth. “I thought you handled it pretty well, all things considered,” she quipped. His mouth curved in amusement, just as she’d hoped.
“Yeah, I only called on the flames of hell.”
Chuckling, she kissed him again. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Of course I came for you. Tanner believes I love you. Love? I don’t know if you could call it that. What I feel isn’t romantic. It isn’t soppy or gentle. It’s dark and consuming and intense – far more intense than any supposed ‘love’ I’ve sensed in another person.” He skimmed his fingers down her arm and took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her palm. “Whatever the hell it is, it’s strong enough to mean my soul is right there.”
She gave him a watery smile. He was better with pretty words than he thought. “That’s only fair, since you have mine.”
Knox kissed her hard, pouring that undefinable emotion into it, letting her feel it for herself. Levi had once said that Knox lived for her now. The reaper was right. Knox had been alive a very long time, knew exactly how it would feel to go through a lifetime without her. He couldn’t go back to that numbness. His demon had no intention of doing so.
Tangling his hand in her silky hair, Knox kissed her again, indulging in a thorough tasting of his mate as he rolled her onto her back. Knox suckled her bottom lip. “This mouth is every man’s fantasy. But it’s mine. Only I can have it. Only I can taste it and fuck it.” To punctuate that, he thrust his tongue back inside to stroke hers; dominating and exploring with an urgency that was fed by the fury still fizzling inside him. He needed to take her, claim her, and own her so completely that she’d never be free of him, just like he’d never be free of her.
Shoving his hand up her tank top, Knox possessively splayed it over her breast and squeezed. Her soft moan made his cock twitch – already he was long and full, desperate to be in her. “I want you wet.” With a pinch to her nipple, he smoothed his hand down her flat stomach and into her panties, cupping her. There would be no psychic fingers tonight, just his skin and hers.
Harper curled her legs around him as he began pumping two confident fingers in and out of her, expertly stroking right over her g-spot each time. He didn’t just hit the spot, he doodled circles on it, fluttered over it, swirled around it. Shit, it felt fucking amazing.
With his free hand, Knox peeled up her tank top and drank in the sight of her luscious breasts. “My marks have faded. We’ll have to fix that.” He latched onto a taut bud, sucking it deep into his mouth.
Moaning, Harper shrugged out of her tank top and tossed it aside. Each tug of his mouth on her nipple sent a jolt of pleasure straight to her pussy. She hissed as his teeth bit the side of her breast. There was no repentance in the dark gaze that met hers; only pure, unadulterated possessiveness. Her hiss became a sob when he withdrew his talented fingers. “The teasing has to stop.” Her stomach was knotted with need – a need
to have him in her, stretching her. “Fuck me.”
“No. I want to savor.” Knox suckled and bit his way down her body. Every part of her was imprinted into his brain; not just her taste, scent, and the feel of her skin, but every curve, every indent, every freckle, every birthmark. He danced his tongue over his demon’s brand as he tore off her panties. “I’m going to taste you now. And then I’ll have you. And this tight little pussy will explode all over my cock.”
Fingers biting into her thighs, Knox sank his tongue inside her. The taste of her burst through him, and went straight to his painfully hard cock. Gluttonously, he licked, lapped, and sipped at her pussy; he couldn’t get enough. Would never get enough. He’d always need her.
As his tongue fluttered teasingly against her inner walls, Harper pulled hard on his hair. “In me.” He moved to her clit, licking and swirling…and she realized he was writing his name over her flesh. “Fuck, Knox, now.” She could only get out key words at this point. Her body was wound so tight, she was shaking. “Knox!” He got to his knees and moved to straddle her chest; his sensual features alive with raw hunger.
“Get me wet, baby.”
The command vibrated with enough power and dominance to make her shiver. She opened her mouth, and he surged inside. Wrapping her hair around his fists, he worked his cock in and out of her mouth, all the while looking at her like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
Fighting the urge to stay in the heat of her mouth, Knox stopped after only a few thrusts, and then he positioned himself between her thighs. “You ready?” At her nod, he smoothly sank into her with an agonizing slowness. She pressed her nails into his back in feminine demand, but he continued to slowly surge forward until he was finally fully sheathed.
“Fuck me hard.”
Knox cocked his hips, giving her a shallow thrust. “When I’m ready.” He kept his strokes sensual and wickedly slow, never moving his eyes from hers. With his cock buried in her body, he kissed her; poured everything he had and everything he was into it. She kissed him just as hard and demandingly, feeding him little moans and whimpers that made his cock pulse. He breathed her, tasted her, felt her running through his veins and imprinted on every bone.
“Harder.” She inhaled sharply as he suddenly slammed hard. “Fuck.” He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and then he was plunging in and out of her with frantic, branding strokes. The sleek muscles of his back flexed and bunched beneath her hands. Caught in his gaze, she could see his pleasure, the fury of his possessiveness, and the depth of the raw, biting need he had for her – all of it heightened and intensified her own need until she could sense her release tumbling fast toward her. “Don’t ask me to wait, I can’t.”
“Then come,” he said against her lips. He closed his mouth over hers, swallowing her scream, as her pussy rippled around his cock. Her release seemed to echo through him, making him explode with an unnatural force as he drove deep.
As she lay shuddering beneath him, Knox nuzzled her neck, inhaling her warm, honeyed scent into his lungs. “Now I feel better.”
“Yeah? How’s your demon doing? Calmer?”
“It’s smirking. It got what it wanted.” He kissed her. “You.”
“Brace yourself, because I’m going to annoy you, ignore you, and surprise you for as long as we both shall live.”
He smiled. “And I’m going to spoil you, fuck you, and – of course – order you around for the rest of our lives.”
“You’re going to try,” she corrected.
Kissing her again, Knox chuckled. “You’ll definitely keep things interesting.”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
None.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“When did you tell Harper what you are?” Levi asked Knox as they stood in Jolene’s large and very crowded kitchen the next morning.
“She’s known since the day before her birthday,” Knox replied, watching his mate laugh at something Khloë said. “As proven by the fact that she’s still content to be my mate, she accepted it. In fact, she took it pretty well.”
“Looking around this room,” began Larkin, “I can understand why she didn’t find it such a big deal. To grow up in this crazy family, you’d have to become a very accepting person.”
Listening to the ongoing argument between an imp who believed he was the reincarnation of Tupac and another imp who was insisting the rapper wasn’t really dead and was actually living on an island with Elvis and Michael Jackson…“True.”
When they’d arrived at Jolene’s house, it had been to find Harper’s entire lair squished into the building. They had each hugged and made a big fuss of Harper, though none had been as dramatic about it as Lucian. He was sulking at the moment, angry that she was refusing to consider taking another male as her mate.
“Does she know that being your mate makes her a co-Prime?” Tanner asked Knox.
“She will soon.” It wasn’t often that Primes officially took a mate as it meant sharing power. Knox hadn’t been in any rush to tell her that she now wielded as much power over their lair as he did, suspecting she wouldn’t like it much. Being quite an individualistic person, she had no interest in ruling others. She had no aspirations for that kind of power, which was partly why she hadn’t wanted to take over from Jolene as Prime of her family’s lair.
“Do me a favor and tell her while I’m around,” said Tanner with a grin. “Her responses are always interesting.”
Levi spoke then. “If you haven’t told her she’s now your co-Prime, I’m guessing you also haven’t told her that you want to psychically bug her, so you’ll always know where she is and what she’s doing.”
“No, I did tell her,” said Knox. “She recommended that I shove a large object up my ass. She doesn’t want to be monitored 24/7.”
Keenan sighed. “I can understand if she’d find it uncomfortable. But she has to know that some things – for instance, the fact that she’s breathing – are more important than her privacy.”
Larkin snorted. “Not to someone as private as Harper. But I’m guessing Knox will keep working at making her change her mind.”
Knox would. Although he respected her wish to not be so closely watched, her safety was much more important to him. “Until she does, we ensure that she’s safe.” His sentinels nodded; it was a vow.
Raini took a cookie from the pile on Jolene’s kitchen table before turning to Harper. “So...who exactly were Jeanna and Jacques?”
“Just stray demons that worked as a partnership and would do anything for the right price.” Harper ate the last of her cupcake. “Even something as stupid as go after Knox Thorne.”
Devon shook her head in wonder. “Stupid is an understatement. I saw what he did to Isla. It was freaky how totally calm he looked while he did it.”
Khloë nodded. “He’s the last person I’d ever cross. And I happen to like trouble.” She turned to Harper. “I’m guessing you know the secret of what he is. I know you can’t tell me what he is, and I’m not asking. I’d just like to be sure you know exactly who – what – you’ve mated with.”
“Rest assured,” was all Harper said, not prepared to reveal anything else. Hearing a husky and very sexy laugh, Harper looked to see a grinning Keenan fairly surrounded by female imps.
“He’s hot as hell,” commented Devon.
Khloë snorted. “Yeah, if you go for alcoholics.” And Khloë had no tolerance for them. She smiled at Harper. “When are you gonna show me your wings?”
“When I learn to control them.”
“I’ll help. The first few times hurt like a bitch and they’re super hard, but it’s not so bad after that. Oh, I almost forgot to ask: When’s the party?”
“Party?” echoed Harper.
“You guys declared yourselves as mates. That means you get a mating party.”
Harper hadn’t even thought about it until that moment.
“Ooh, she hasn’t planned it yet.” Khloë rubbed her hands t
ogether as she turned to Raini and Devon. “I think this is where we step in.”
“Good idea,” said Raini. “Our Harper’s creative, but she’s also too self-conscious to plan a decent event.”
Devon nodded. “We can come up with something better ourselves.”
“I’m right here,” Harper ground out.
Devon patted her hand. “We know, sweetie. Now you just stand there and look pretty – we have this.” A loud hiss escaped her as she glanced behind her. “Back off, pooch.”
“Hackles down, kitten,” said Tanner.
Leaving the hellhound and the hellcat to exchange barbs, Harper went to her mate and stepped right into his arms. The sentinels melted away, giving them some privacy. “I have no idea why they’re all here,” she told Knox.
He kissed her forehead. “They had a scare when you were taken. You’re important to these people, Harper.”
She looked at the male arguing with Jolene. “Maybe not to Lou.”
Knox shrugged. “No one’s all that important to Lou. He just came here because he’s nosy and wanted all the details about what happened.”
“If I did have OCD,” Lou said to Jolene, “it would bother me that the letters aren’t in alphabetical order, wouldn’t it?”
“Be honest, admit that it bothers you,” dared Jolene.
“What bothers me is that health professionals give fancy names to conditions or learning difficulties that will irritate the patients; like OCD not being in alphabetical order, putting an ‘S’ in ‘lisp,’ and making dyslexia a word that no one can spell. It’s just mean.”
Harper turned to Knox. “I still don’t quite know how to process that guy.”
“Ignore him.” Knox pulled her flush against him, smiling to see that her gaze was the same warm-honey color it had been when they first met. “Ignore them all. Let me take you home.”
“Will you ravish me if I do?”
“You know I don’t like rhetorical questions.”
She smiled, lightly scoring her nails over the brand on his nape, knowing how much he liked it. I love you, Knox Thorne. His eyes shone with an adoration that warmed her all over, inside and out. She knew if he could articulate what he felt, he would. She also knew it bothered him that he couldn’t. It’s enough that you look at me just like that – like I’m all that matters to you.