Burn

by Suzanne Wright

  “No. But I can’t imagine that Knox would wish to keep us away. If nothing else, it would affect his businesses.”

  “What about the Underground? He created this place, he runs it, so that would also make it his territory.”

  “Yes, so you would need his permission to come here. Again, though, I don’t foresee him preventing outsiders from coming. He created the Underground for our kind, not for himself.”

  “Let’s ask him.” Raul turned to Knox. “Would you let demons from other lairs cross your territorial lines? Would you let us come here the way you do now?”

  “That would depend,” replied Knox.

  “On what?”

  “Whether or not having territories causes demons to see outsiders as enemies,” said Knox. “It’s true that lairs intermingling can cause conflict. But if Primes start claiming territories, that will effectively create divides. Suddenly lairs will consider other lairs to be potential enemies. I won’t have here or Las Vegas suddenly becoming a battle ground.”

  A Prime to their right spoke. “Knox has an excellent point. You say your system will unite us, Dario. Instead, it could just divide us more.”

  “I see how Knox may view it that way.” There was no judgment or hostility in Dario’s tone. “But I truly believe this system could work. The Primes would be working together, all demons would have equal rights, and we would be united. It would make us stronger. That can never be a bad thing.”

  As Dario left the dais, Beck spoke. “I thought that the only demon who’d present a reasonable case would be Isla, since the other two just want to avoid answering to someone else. But all three of them have presented proposals that just might appeal to the public.”

  “Worse, Dario’s proposal might appeal to the Primes,” commented Martina.

  “I think that if the Primes start worrying that the public will want a Monarch, they’ll prefer it was Dario, because it would gain them territory – more power. Even Isla can see that.” Jolene tipped her chin toward the she-demon in question; she was currently glaring at an unsuspecting Dario, clearly seething.

  Knox whispered into Harper’s ear, “I have to say a few words and remind everybody what happens next.” The moment he walked onto the dais, the attention of the room settled on him. “Over the course of this weekend, you’ve heard all three proposals, and you’ve heard the opinions of many Primes during the Q&As. Now it’s time to form your own opinion. There are pros and cons of having a Monarch, and there are pros and cons of each proposal. A vote will take place in the Underground two weeks from now. Anyone who votes will only be able to do so once, and each vote will be anonymous. If you vote in favor of a Monarch, you’ll need to also specify which candidate you wish to elect. So think it through, and choose your fate wisely.”

  It was as Knox reached Harper that the Primes began to head to his table. Gently pulling Harper to her feet, he spoke briefly to each demon as they thanked him for hosting the event. Knox was sure to refer to Harper as his mate, wanting the news to spread fast.

  When Malden approached, he was wearing a very smug smirk. Knox had the feeling that he believed his proposal would be the most favored. “It was good seeing you, Knox. Where’s Raul?”

  “He already left with his anchor,” replied Knox.

  “I had hoped to say goodbye. Never mind. Jolene, it’s always a pleasure. And Harper, you take care.”

  She nodded, smiling. “You too, Malcolm.”

  To her amusement, the tick in his cheek did a crazy dance as his smirk fell. “It’s Malden.”

  She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “That’s right, sorry.”

  As the Prime marched away, Knox smiled against her mouth. “Such a tease.” He inwardly groaned as he sensed a very unwelcome she-demon approaching. Isla’s coming.

  My evening is complete.

  “Hello, Knox.” So deceptively pleasant.

  Knox lifted his head. “Isla.”

  “I just thought I’d say farewell. We’ll talk again soon. Oh, and do reconsider electing a Monarch. I could improve so much for our kind.”

  His smile was as forced as hers. “Your plea is wasted on me, Isla.”

  “You always were stubborn.” Her tone was full of nostalgia. Turning to Harper, she held out a small, black velvet bag. “I wanted to give you something, Harper. Call it a peace offering.”

  Dubious, Harper raised a brow. “Yeah? What is it?”

  “Open and see.”

  Curiosity alone made Harper take and open the little drawstring bag. Inside was some kind of silver chain. She pulled it out, realizing there was a silver pendant hanging from it. It was engraved with a triquetra and had a gold dragon attached to it. It also fairly buzzed with power.

  “It’s a protective amulet,” Isla explained. “Be sure to wear it.”

  The genuine concern in the she-demon’s voice made Harper look up. With a regal nod, Isla turned away and left. “I’m guessing this thing is cursed or something, because there’s just no way that that woman wants me protected.”

  Knox took the amulet and closed his hand around it. “There’s power in this.”

  “I know, I felt it. But it didn’t feel bad.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “You’re saying Isla wants to protect Harper?” Levi was clearly skeptical.

  “No,” replied Knox. “I’m merely saying there’s no negative power attached to the amulet.”

  “Maybe she wants to appear concerned for Harper, hoping it will make us think she’s innocent in all the shit that’s been going on,” theorized Tanner.

  “That seems more likely than her giving Harper some kind of lucky charm.” Martina scowled at Harper. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you don’t wear the necklace I gave you with the fishbone charm on it. It’s for good luck.”

  Harper frowned. “How can it give good luck? Things didn’t exactly go well for the fish.”

  Beck’s laugh earned him a glower from Martina.

  “Well, sweetheart, I’m afraid we have to leave.” Jolene gave Harper a tight, one-armed hug. “Come visit me soon, bring Knox. And Tanner and Levi can come along.” She smiled. “It’s always nice to have things around that are pretty to look at.”

  Once she’d said her goodbyes to Martina and Beck, Harper turned to Knox. “After we’ve picked up our luggage from upstairs, I’d like to go to my apartment and see what survived the spell.”

  Having returned the amulet to the velvet bag and placed it in his pocket, Knox took her hand. He’d shove the amulet in a drawer somewhere later. “I’ll have Keenan take the luggage to the mansion while we go to your apartment. It’s going to be a mess, baby. Be ready.”

  It turned out he was right. One step inside the apartment, Harper halted with a groan. The place looked like an abandoned house – the furniture still standing was stained with the ash of the items that had been destroyed by the venom. It was dark, damp, and smelled like a morgue. Like rot and decay.

  “You know, it makes no sense to me that the practitioner would perform a spell that put so many snakes inside and then only a few outside,” she told Knox. “The snakes slithering on my front door were a huge fucking warning that there could be more inside. Why give me that warning?”

  “I don’t think any were supposed to get outside. But a few escaped through the letterbox, something the practitioner obviously hadn’t considered would happen.”

  “Maybe. But why not just do a simpler spell that hid a few snakes inside – they could have taken me off guard and easily bitten me. At first, I couldn’t understand it. But now, looking at this mess, I’m thinking that they put all the snakes inside because they intended to do this much damage. They wanted to destroy my stuff to hurt me, and to help vent their anger. If it’s a reaction to finding out you and I are mates, the news obviously didn’t shift their anger to you.”

  And that pissed Knox the fuck off. “Come on, let’s see what’s still intact, box it up, and get out of here.”

&nbs
p; So that was what they did. With so much dark energy filling the space, it was a relief to get out of there. The smell seemed to cling to her flesh and clothes. She scrubbed at her skin in Knox’s shower, trying to wash it away. But it was as though the scent of rot had clogged her nostrils. Settled on the sofa in the living area, dressed in her sweats, she inhaled the coffee Meg – bless her soul – had made, hoping it would chase away the horrid smell that seemed to haunt her. According to Levi, it would take a little more work from the incantor to remove the stains of the spell from the apartment.

  Beside her, Knox was leaning over the box on the table that contained the things Harper had rescued from the apartment. Meg had washed each one before placing them in a different box, ridding them all of the scent of decay. She really was fabulous.

  “What are all these?” he asked.

  “They’re just knickknacks. You know, sentimental stuff.” She lifted out a hand-painted skeleton-shaped trinket box. “I got this from a market in Mexico. We didn’t live there long, but I loved it there.” Returning the little box, she pulled out a tiny, beautiful piano replica. “This is from Switzerland. We didn’t stay there long, either. Lucian got me this when I told him I wanted a piano – his idea of a joke.” She carefully put the piano back and pointed to a wooden carved model of the Colosseum in Rome. “He bought me this when we were in Italy. We stayed there for over a year. I loved it there.”

  Knox turned in his seat to face her, propping his elbow on the top of the sofa. “Jolene was right.”

  “About what?”

  “You have good memories of your time with Lucian.”

  “I’ve told you before that I enjoyed the traveling, and that I wouldn’t change my upbringing.”

  She had, but Knox hadn’t seen how that could be possible. He hadn’t seen how she could have enjoyed years of having no real say in basic things like where she lived. Knox tucked her hair behind her ear. “Tell me more about Lucian. I need reasons why I shouldn’t kill him.”

  She shot him a mock scowl. “Lucian isn’t cruel. Self-centered and absentminded, yeah. At the core of all that, he’s very lonely.” All demons were plagued by loneliness, and Lucian felt it acutely, which made him seriously restless. “But he doesn’t have the emotional maturity to do anything about it or to connect with others. So he lives with a hole inside him. Once upon a time, he tried to fill it with drugs, alcohol, women, gambling, and all kinds of dangerous shit. He’s past that phase now, but he can’t fill that void. I’m not sure if he even knows exactly what he’s looking for in life, but he’s always searching for it, and he’s always searching in all the wrong places.”

  Knox got it then. “Someone so lost can’t concentrate on the needs of another person.”

  “That’s exactly it. Demons aren’t built to be alone. But he’s been alone for a very long time.”

  So had Knox, but he didn’t see that as an excuse for the selfish behavior Lucian had shown. “He had you.”

  “That’s not the same as having a mate, though, is it? And to be fair to him, he never tried to use me to fill that void. He could have clung to me the way some lonely parents do, could have held me tight to him to make him feel loved, cherished, and important. But he never did. I think that by raising me to not need anyone or anything to complete my life – to only enhance it – he was trying to make sure I didn’t turn out like him.”

  While that made sense, Knox didn’t want it to make sense or he’d have to let some of his anger at Lucian go. He couldn’t deny one thing, though. “He does care for you.”

  “I believe he does. When I first went to live with him, he told me that he’d done me a favor by leaving me with Jolene; that I was better off without having him around permanently. He warned me that he was going to screw up, and he apologized in advance for it. He really isn’t a bad person, Knox. Just unable to meet the needs of others, because he can’t even meet his own needs. So please don’t kill him,” she added with a smile.

  Knox sighed. “It’s important to me that you were happy. I just need to be sure.”

  Harper regarded him thoughtfully. “You didn’t have a great upbringing, did you? Ooh, he tenses,” she chuckled. “Come on, you can give me something. You once said you didn’t belong to a lair before you moved to the sanctuary. Where were you?”

  Knox threaded his fingers through her damp hair; everything within him recoiled at the idea of revisiting that time in his life, but this was Harper. “People would nowadays describe it as a cult. Back then, it was just a group of demons that detached themselves from their lair and formed a Prime-less group, pooling all their resources and claiming a plot of land.”

  That answer certainly threw Harper. “Why did you all leave the lair? Was the Prime a bastard or something?”

  “I don’t remember a lot about the Prime, but I remember that everyone feared him. So some of them left as a group, but they didn’t join another lair, because they all rejected the idea of having a Prime. They didn’t want to be ruled, they wanted peace. They wanted to be free.”

  “But they didn’t get that peace,” she guessed. He didn’t answer, just stared at her with eyes that gave away nothing. “You promised you’d try sharing,” she reminded him.

  He sighed heavily. “From what I can remember, it wasn’t so bad in the beginning. The females and the children were treated like royalty. Everyone was happy and close and felt free.”

  “What changed?”

  “One of them, Riordan” – the name alone infuriated Knox’s demon – “appointed himself as a sort of messiah. He preached about the corruption of lairs; calling all Primes power-hungry authoritarians who didn’t care for the safety of those under their protection.” The bastard could have been talking about himself. “In effect, he was actually making himself their Prime. And they didn’t see it.”

  When moments went by and he said no more, she asked, “How old were you when the ‘cult’ was formed?”

  “Three. By the time I was five, it was an isolated totalitarian society. Little by little, Riordan took over. He introduced a dress code, a job chart, a timetable, and guidelines that placed a lot of restrictions on everyone and made them reliant on him. In addition, he cut everyone off from the outside world.”

  “Keeping them all isolated and inducing dependency would have made it easier for him to brainwash and control them.” It was little wonder that Knox was such a control freak and had such a total aversion to relying on others. Someone had once ripped control away from him. He’d taken it back, but it had made him determined to never lose it again. “Didn’t anyone speak up?”

  “Not many, because he and his helpers punished any form of subordination. Riordan did whatever he had to do to keep his power.” Manipulated. Intimidated. Exploited. Oppressed.

  As usual, Knox’s exterior was calm and his tone was even. But she’d come to know him so well that she could sense his buried rage. And she just knew that the answer to her next question would be bad, but she had to ask, “What did they do to you?”

  He leaned toward her. “Maybe your question should be…what did I do to them?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The menace that had slithered into Knox’s voice made even her inner demon freeze as Harper watched him warily. He’d spoken so softly, so steadily. But the danger was there, sending a trickle of trepidation through her system. It was an instinctive reaction that she couldn’t escape, despite trusting that he wouldn’t exact that menace on her. He was the ultimate predator, and she could never overlook that.

  “Aren’t you going to ask?” It was a dare that carried a taunt.

  She swallowed, veiling her apprehension. “Not until you answer my question.”

  “He punished anyone who wouldn’t give him the unquestioning devotion and submission that he demanded.”

  Harper didn’t need to ask if Knox had rebelled. “Punished how?”

  “Lots of ways.” Knox tangled a hand in her hair, watching as her jade green eyes swirled and changed into
an entrancing cobalt blue. “He liked to keep people locked in a closet for a week or so. In that time, he wouldn’t let them eat, he wouldn’t let them sleep, and he’d beat them frequently.” His demon snarled at the memories. “Many of his followers helped. They got a taste for it, and they enjoyed it.”

  Her apprehension was swiftly replaced by fury. “Then the bastards deserved whatever they got.”

  “How can you be so sure when you don’t know what they got?”

  “They hurt you, so I really don’t care.”

  Her response warmed him and settled his demon. “I never said they hurt me. I said they punished people who refused to submit.”

  “You refused.”

  She was right. Knox and his demon had resisted Riordan’s control, refused to submit, no matter what he or his followers did. But the rage hadn’t really hit Knox until he left and got his freedom; that was when he’d realized what the outside world – one he’d been brought up to believe was bad and dangerous – was truly like, and he’d understood exactly what the bastards had stolen from him.

  It had been difficult to adjust, but he’d worked hard to properly develop the sense of self that the bastards had tried to break down and take from him. In the sanctuary, he’d soaked up knowledge of every kind. When he left, he’d used that knowledge to gain all the things he’d been deprived of. And he’d vowed that he’d never again let anyone have any form of control over him.

  “Didn’t your parents ever help you, ever try to stop him?”

  “Not until the people who questioned or defied Riordan developed a habit of disappearing. That made them wary and suspicious. So when I was twelve, they tried to leave and take me with them.”

  “He killed them,” she guessed. “You tried to protect them.”

  “No, baby,” he said softly. “I avenged them.” Riordan had forced him to watch as he slit his parents’ throats. Knox had struck back, taken his vengeance out on everything around him. “You’ve seen what destruction I can cause. You can guess what I did. I warned the innocent ones to run, but most of them wouldn’t leave Riordan – they’d become too dependent on him, were utterly brainwashed. So they died with him. But I didn’t care. I was too eager to see him suffer.”