Knight's Absolution (Knights of Hell Book 5)

by Sherilee Gray

  Her lips parted, full and red and puffy from moving them all over his body as she’d worked at healing his wounds. Gunner bit back a growl as her lids lowered and her color deepened. Christ, her nipples were darker as well, tighter. His hand was on her thigh over his shoulder, and he felt the muscle flex. She was close. His gaze dipped back between her thighs, unable to look away from his fingers sliding in and out of her. Christ, how wet she was.

  He wanted to put his mouth on her, lick her, taste her, make her come against his tongue, but one step at a time. There was no need to rush her. She wasn’t going anywhere. He’d make sure she felt safe with him, that she moved at her own pace, accepted him in her own time.

  He brushed his thumb over her clit as he fucked her with his fingers.

  Finally, her cry echoed around the small room, her pussy clamping down hard. His gaze shot back up so he could watch her as she came for him.

  She called out his name, her hips moving, breasts shaking, belly quivering. Jesus, he was close to coming again just from watching her.

  “So beautiful, Luna. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

  She stared down at him, and not for the first time his gaze slid over her chest, where her heart rested, unmoving and silent. She wasn’t panting after coming or breathing heavily. She was still. She was always so still.

  “Okay?” he rasped.

  Her gaze didn’t waver, remained locked on his, a million things he couldn’t name moving through her eyes. “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”

  Lowering her leg from his shoulder, he stood and brushed her hair behind her ear. “My gaze is drawn to you whenever we’re in the same room, and then I can’t look away. My heart skips a beat every time you look at me with those stunning violet eyes.” He cupped her cheek and slid his thumb over her puffy lower lip. “And when I close my eyes at night, all I see, all I want to see is this beautiful face.”

  She gave him one of those slow blinks. “But I’m just…I’m…”

  “You still don’t believe me?” he asked, his heart cracking at the doubt in her eyes.

  She searched his gaze for several long seconds, and then he saw it, the moment she finally believed him. When she finally saw the truth in his eyes.

  She blinked, and a red tear streaked down her face. “Gunner.”

  That’s all she said, but the way she said his name said more than a million words could. Her voice was filled with so many things—pain and happiness, loss and sadness. Joy.

  She fucking tore him in two. Luna felt everything so damn deeply. She was still getting a handle on her new emotions and the way they affected her.

  Still fighting the demons in her head, repeating Azel's ugly words.

  And he wasn’t surprised when what she was feeling now literally knocked her off her feet.

  She crumpled, and he caught her in his arms.

  He’d always catch her.

  Always.

  Chapter 23

  Luna clung to Gunner as he rubbed the towel over her damp skin, then carried her to his bedroom.

  Somehow, he managed to climb on the bed with her still in those strong, tattooed arms, wrapping them so firmly and surely around her as they lay there.

  He held her as she cried, her emotional demons rearing up, battering her, the pain of the past washing over her like a tsunami.

  The names Azel had called her.

  What he’d done to her when he fed, using her body, taking pleasure from her when she hadn’t fully understood what was happening—when she was vulnerable, starving, and alone. She could admit to herself now that she’d actively tried not to let herself think about it. About any of it.

  After he’d used her, when it was over and he was done with her, she would lock it away in the back of her mind. Pretend it never happened.

  Her body and emotions had been blessedly numb to it, and she was thankful for that now. She wasn’t sure how she would have remained sane if she’d been the female she was now living with him. If she felt everything the way she did now.

  No, she wasn’t numb anymore, and the reality of what Azel had done to her, what he’d taken from her, was suddenly tearing at her from the inside out.

  “He hurt me, Gunner,” she whispered into the dark.

  “Yeah, love, he did.”

  There was no mistaking the feeling growing inside her, so hot and vast and wild. “I hate him. I hate that fucking twisted asshole with everything in me.”

  Gunner’s hold tightened. “He deserves your hate, love, but don’t give him any more of you.”

  She squeezed her eyes closed, her body shaking as she tried to stop the images, the memories from filling her mind. “He took what wasn’t his to take. He treated me like a thing, like I was nothing.”

  Gunner pressed his lips to her forehead. “He was wrong. He was so fucking wrong. You’re not nothing, Luna, to me you’re everything.”

  She turned in his arms and pressed her face against his massive chest and shuddered. “I should have fought. I should have looked harder for Ronan. I should have tried to leave sooner. I should have killed that piece of shit while I had the chance. I should have—”

  “Stop,” Gunner clipped out, gripping her chin and tilting her head up. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for any of it. Not one fucking thing. You did nothing wrong, Luna. You survived. You got through every damn day because you are so incredibly strong and brave, and I’m so fucking glad…” He swallowed repeatedly. “I’m so fucking glad that you did and you’re here with me now.”

  This male, god, he broke her. Every day with him, he chipped through the walls that had been around her all her life and slowly but surely revealed the real Luna, the Luna who had lived behind cold indifference, protecting herself from the pain. Gunner cared for her, he did. How could she have ever doubted it, doubted him?

  “What did I do to deserve you?” she whispered. “Why did the fates choose me to be yours?”

  “Because they knew, as I do, that no one else exists on this earth who could make me as happy as you do. Who could give me everything that you do.”

  Her lip trembled as she stared at him through the darkness. “I can’t wait to be your mate,” she said, meaning it with everything in her. “Wish I was ready now. I wish my head wasn’t so…all over the place…”

  “We have all the time in the world, love.”

  There he went, making her cry all over again. She sniffled, and Gunner wiped her tears away with his thumbs. She wanted to be his mate so badly, but Azel was still poison in her veins, the monster in her head, and when she gave herself to Gunner, she didn’t want that evil, that darkness with them.

  Pressing her hands to his warm, hard chest, she breathed him in, letting his scent, his strength ease the turmoil inside her. “Will you tell me about it? About mating. What’s it like?” She didn’t want to think about the past anymore, only the future.

  “What do you want to know?”

  His gravelly voice lifted goose bumps over her skin, the good kind. “Everything.”

  He chuckled, a sound that had her feeling all the things she now associated with the word joy. His hand moved over her back, warm and soothing. Luna snuggled closer.

  “It happens during sex,” he said. “The way my brothers tell it, there’s this thread of light that appears while you’re making love to your female.”

  “Making love.” Luna found herself repeating the words before she knew she was going to.

  “Yeah,” he said roughly. “What we’ll have will never be just sex, Luna. What you and I will share, will always share, will be so much deeper, so much more.”

  Her face warmed, wondering what “making love” with Gunner would be like. “That sounds nice.”

  “I guarantee it’ll be better than nice,” he growled, low and sexy.

  Her head was resting on his bicep now, and she slid her arm around his waist. “What do you do when you see the thread?”

  “You grab on to it, metaphorically speaking, I guess. That�
��s how my mated brothers have explained it.”

  “Do I have to do it as well?”

  She felt rather than saw him shake his head. “Only I’ll see it, and only I can make us mates.”

  “Hmm.”

  He chuckled again. “Hey, I have no control over how it works.”

  She laughed softly, and it felt so incredibly good. How did he do this? A moment ago, she was falling apart in his arms, and now she was laughing, feeling safe and wanted. She could barely contain her happiness. “Then what?”

  Gunner was quiet for several seconds and his heart beat faster, harder, thudding under her hand.

  “Then we become mates. Laz, Chaos, Kryos, even Zenon have tried to explain to me how it feels, but none of them have been able to put it into words…besides really fucking good.” He chuckled again. “After that, we’re joined forever. If you weren’t already, you’d become immortal like me. And we’ll be able to track each other, call out to each other even easier than we can now. Over time that link between us will grow stronger until I’ll be able to feel how you feel even when we’re apart.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if I’m pissed off at you, you’ll know?”

  He laughed again, low and rumbly and yummy. “I guess so. I’ll do my best not to do that.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  Luna smiled at him through the darkness. His fingers brushed her chin, and he tilted her head back before his lips brushed over hers, kissing her so tenderly her chest got warm and fluttery. He lifted his head, then pressed another sweet kiss to her lips, then another.

  “You still looking forward to becoming my mate, love?”

  She would not cry again. She would not. “So much.”

  He let out a relieved breath as if he was actually scared she would reject him. “Don’t cry, baby,” he said gently.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Since you rescued me and I started…feeling, I’ve become a goddamn fountain. Why don’t you cry all the time? It’s all so…overwhelming.”

  “I’m just used to it.”

  She blinked, fighting back the tears. “When was the last time you cried?”

  His large, rough-skinned hand cupped her face, and he looked into her eyes through the shadows. “When I found you in that room.”

  “Oh god,” she all but wailed, and the tears began to flow all over again.

  Gunner held her tightly in his arms, protective and comforting, and Luna clung to him, not wanting to ever let him go.

  She’d never had anything, definitely not anyone, that was hers.

  Gunner would be hers.

  And she would be his.

  “We need to see what she can do,” Chaos said, his hard gaze unwavering, a frown making his forehead wrinkle.

  The male frowned a lot. Luna opened her mouth to say something, but Gunner beat her to it.

  “She’s barely recovered. She’s not up to it yet.”

  “We don’t have time. You know that as well as I do. Christ, James is out there now, probably being tortured. We need something, fucking anything to tip the scales.” Chaos’s gaze flicked to her and softened a tiny bit. “We need to know what you can do, Luna. We’ve seen demons appearing out of nowhere, easily fifty demons concealed, then standing right beside us. Your power is unique and fucking impressive. It could make a huge difference in this war.”

  She wished she could tell him what he wanted to hear. “A lot of that was my brother…or his power at least. His was the strongest between the two of us. I block, mainly.”

  “How strong is it?”

  She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt as her belly squirmed, suddenly feeling hollow. It wasn’t a good feeling. In fact, she wanted to find the nearest hole to crawl in. Shame. She was pretty sure the emotion she was feeling was shame. “I mean…yes, my power is strong. The beast that was summoned…”

  “You were the one blocking it, stopping us from getting to it, to Azel?” Gunner asked beside her.

  “He ordered me to protect him while he performed the summoning ritual.” Her stomach lurched just remembering that night.

  “And the trance-like state so many demons have been in when they fight us?” Chaos asked.

  “That was Azel. My brother and I are…were…” She had to clear her throat at the thought that she would never see her brother again, that Azel had ripped his powers from him and killed him in cold blood. “We’re blockers. I can create shields as strong as you saw that night. I can also create a block so…” She searched for the right word. “Layered, that I am essentially invisible. Ronan, well, it was his power that blocked and maintained cover over our house. Between the three of us, we could control and conceal the demons who have been attacking you this past year.”

  “Will you show us?” Chaos asked.

  Luna hadn’t used her powers since she’d vanished from emotional overload in front of Gunner. It still didn’t feel right to use them after she’d caused so much pain.

  But if she could help now, she had to show them.

  So she did what she had since she was trained to use her powers a year ago, calling them forth, but this time, it didn’t feel the same. There was no feeling of razor blades slicing through her veins, no acid burning her gut, no fundamental feeling of wrongness making her sick to her stomach.

  “It’s not the same…” She spun to Gunner, her eyes wide. “This is different. It feels, it feels right, good.” It worked the same, but using her power didn’t send her entire mind and body into distress.

  “Do you think it’s my blood?” Gunner asked.

  “There’s nothing else it could be.” She lifted her hands, raising her block, and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. “When I drank from Azel, I had to fight not to throw up.” She blushed and cleared her throat. “I definitely don’t have that problem with you.” Her gaze slid to Chaos. “Try to touch me.”

  Chaos lifted a hand and moved closer until he butted against the barrier she’d made. “Christ. This is amazing, Luna. How much force can it withstand?”

  “Well, the beast ran into it and it stopped him in his tracks.”

  Gunner made a strange sound beside her. He was thinking the same thing she was. That she’d stopped the beast from getting to him that night. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him right then or she might cry all over again at what she’d done, what had almost happened to him because of her.

  “Can you show us your layered block? How that works?”

  She nodded and envisioned layer after layer stacking up in front of her.

  Both males cursed.

  “You’re completely invisible,” Gunner said. “I didn’t try last time, but if I reached out now, would I be able to touch you?”

  “How many of us could you block at once?” Chaos added.

  “On my own? I’m not sure. I’ve always had Ronan’s power boosting me. Quite a few, I think.” She dropped the block and motioned Gunner forward.

  He joined her and she lifted the block again, in layers.

  “You’re both gone,” Chaos said. “Can you use your barrier at the same time?”

  “Yes,” she said and lifted that as well.

  “Try touching us,” Gunner said.

  She looked up at him. “He can’t hear us when my barrier’s up.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head.

  He reached out and cupped the side of her face. “I can feel it, your power. Your skin is tingling against my palm.” His eyes grew intense. “You saved me that night, too, didn’t you, love? The beast was gunning for me and you blocked it, you protected me like you did at that house.”

  She nodded because suddenly she found it difficult to speak.

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded again, and he brushed his thumbs over her cheeks. They came away coated in blood.

  “That always happens when I use my power. I’m not
crying…”

  Gunner's mouth came down on her, cutting off her words. Luna lifted to her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around him, kissing him back. She was greedy for him, always.

  Someone cleared their throat, and Luna pulled back, only realizing then that her block had dropped completely. She’d been so wrapped up in the male grinning down at her that she’d lost all control.

  “Mental note. Keep you two apart if we ever use Luna in the field,” Chaos said.

  Gunner grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “I want to help,” she said, meaning it with everything in her. “I want to help fix what I broke. You’ve seen what I can do.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you being out there…”

  “Grace fights,” Luna said, injecting all the determination she felt into her words. “And you know I can keep myself safe. No one will even know I’m there.”

  “Azel will, and after the way you reacted the last time he was close…” He planted his hands on his hips. “Until that angel is out of commission, I want you here where it’s safe.”

  A shiver moved through her at the memory, but things had changed. “I know this sounds weird, but I can feel him leaving me. The more I drink from you, the less I feel of him.”

  Chaos crossed his arms. “It’s working, then. Silas was right.”

  The door opened and Rocco strode in.

  Luna inwardly winced at how much the knight had changed since the first time she’d seen him fighting with his brothers. His face was harder, his body so much leaner.

  “Roc?” Chaos straightened. “What’s going on?”

  The male’s gaze came to Luna, and she took an involuntary step back.

  “Got a message for you.”

  “Me?” she squeaked.

  “A male named Spencer? You know him?”

  Luna rushed forward. “He’s my friend.”

  “He’s been trying to find you, asking around. Made contact with a demi who used to work at a bar with—” His jaw tightened, strain and anguish lining his features.