Knox’s feet moved soundlessly along the light pine flooring as he walked to the small bar. “Drew’s shields are very weak. I picked up some of his thoughts. I didn’t like what I heard.” He gestured at the bottles. “Drink?”
Shaking her head, she folded her arms. “What thoughts did you hear?”
“Like your father, he has a lot of distaste for me due to the rumors he’s heard over the years about my versions of punishment. Such as the time I subjected a vampire to horrific torture, confined her to a solid brass coffin, and then set a fire beneath said coffin. Of course, she’d kidnapped and caused much harm to one of my demons, but people tend to leave out that part.”
Pausing, Knox poured himself a gin and tonic. “He thinks I’m bad for you. Too dangerous. Too cold. He believes I couldn’t possibly care for you the way I should, so he has absolutely no idea why you have committed yourself to me. Although … he does wonder if you feel comfortable with me because I’m like Lucian.”
Harper’s eyes widened. “What? You’re nothing like my father.”
“I know that. But to Drew, I’m as emotionally unavailable as Lucian. Therefore, Drew wonders if it’s a case of you having daddy issues.” Knox took a swig from his tumbler. “Baby, he just wants there to be a reason you’re with me that doesn’t mean you care for me. He’s jealous that I have you, and he despises me for tying you to me.”
“Jealous?” Harper’s arms slipped to her sides. She shook her head, unconvinced. “I’m sure he finds it surprising that I’m mated and have a kid, considering the last time he saw me I was still intent on not getting involved with a demon—”
“A rule you broke for him one night,” Knox reminded her, voice carefully controlled. “He projected his memories quite loud.”
Harper felt her cheeks heat, though she wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed. His voice hadn’t raised even a single octave, but cold menace was stamped into every line of his perfectly sculpted face. “I was hammered.”
“Yes, you were so hammered, in fact, that he got to … what’s the term? Third base.”
The taunt there made Harper narrow her eyes. She had a vague memory of Drew making her come with his fingers in her old apartment. She remembered pushing him away after that. He hadn’t pressured her for more. He’d just kissed her forehead and left.
Knox took another swig of his drink. “As you can imagine, I don’t like having all that in my head. My demon was kind enough to share some of its own memories of you with the hellcat. Memories that would drive home exactly who you belong to. If the hellcat has any sense, he will stay away from you.”
“Knox, I really don’t think Drew has any designs on me. Even if he did, he’s hardly going to think he has a chance with me. You and I don’t just live together, we exchanged rings, we have a son, and I took your surname. If all that doesn’t scream ‘commitment’ I don’t know what will. Even the skanks from your past have given up trying their luck with you.” And, really, she just didn’t believe that Drew cared enough to bother.
Crossing to her, Knox curved his hand around her chin. “Harper, do you really think that if you’d been in a relationship with someone when I met you, it would have stopped me from pursuing you? I’ve told you before, I would have taken you from them—no matter what it took. Not even the sight of a black diamond on your finger would have discouraged me.”
“Yeah, well, Drew never cared for me the way you do. That fumble in my old apartment wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t both been smashed.”
“I doubt that he’s never cared for you. He’s certainly possessive of you. I felt it.” Knox knocked back the last of his drink and then placed the glass on the table. “In any case, I don’t want him near you, whispering words in your ear that might make you doubt me.”
“Even if he does think you’re bad for me, he wouldn’t try to cause problems if for no other reason than we have Asher. Drew isn’t a bad person. He wouldn’t try to break up a family.”
“I’m not so sure of that.” Knox combed his fingers through her dark hair and then rubbed the silky gold ends between the pads of his fingers. “I don’t like that he’s known you longer than I have. I don’t like that he knows what you taste like.” Knox cupped her pussy. “Or that he knows what it feels like to have this, hot and slick, rippling around his fingers. It’s mine.”
Gripping his arms, Harper swallowed. “He’s known me longer, but he doesn’t know me better than you do. Nobody does.”
“No, they don’t,” Knox agreed. He breezed his thumb over the tattoo-like brand his demon had left on the V between her thighs. It was an intricate swirl of thorns that he often made a point of tracing with his tongue. “Just like nobody knows me better than you do. Which means you know exactly what I’m capable of. You know just how dangerous I can be and just how far I’d go to keep and protect you. It would be better for Clarke if he never has to learn that.”
Knox kissed her. Hard. Deep. Wet. Punctuating his words. Taking everything because it was his to take. She was essential to him. Indispensable. Something he needed. He’d never let her go. Never. Not even if she begged him.
He could admit that he’d railroaded her the entire time they’d been together, and he didn’t feel the least bit guilty about that. He was as ruthless and calculated as he was rumored to be. He did what it took to get what he wanted—lied, hurt, manipulated, exploited, destroyed. What he’d wanted most was Harper, and he’d done whatever he had to do to have her. He had no limits when it came to her.
He’d pushed her to give herself to him and form the anchor bond, and it still amused him that while he’d spent time using various manipulation tactics to lure her to him, he’d been unknowingly falling for her. In a short time, he’d pushed for more. Pushed her to accept him as her mate, to move in with him, to wear his rings, and to take his surname.
He’d been elated to hear she was pregnant, and a darkly possessive part of him had thought … Now she’s tied even further to me.
She bit his lip and pulled back. “Ease up, you made your point.” She pushed his hand away from her pussy, not liking when he used his sexuality against her that way. “Wait a minute, your demon didn’t share the memory of branding me down there, did it?” Because she’d never be able to look Drew in the eye ever again.
Knox raised a brow. “Would it bother you if it had?”
“Uh … yeah. Don’t play with me, Thorne. Did the weird motherfucker share it or not?”
Knox felt his lips twitch. He was quite sure that no one would ever dare call his demon a weird motherfucker—or any other offensive name, for that matter. He was also quite sure that his demon wouldn’t find such an insult amusing if it had come from anyone other than her. It was such a simple thing, but it brought him pleasure because it proved she trusted both him and his demon.
“No,” replied Knox. “But now that you’ve put the idea in its head, I can’t say it won’t ever share said memory with him.” She gaped in horror, and he chuckled. “Really, Harper, do you think my demon would ever give Clarke or anyone else a glimpse of that pussy?” Grabbing her hips, Knox pulled her flush against him. “You should know better than that.”
“Like I said, your demon can be weird. I mean, the fact that I have a brand down there only goes to prove that.”
Knox smiled against her mouth. “There are much worse brands it would like to leave on your body. Well, you would define them as ‘worse’. I’d call them … interesting.”
She stilled. “That’s not funny.”
“Nor is it a joke.” But the sheer panic on her face was priceless. Teasing wasn’t something he’d done with others. He hadn’t thought it was in his nature to tease, but she brought that out in him.
Before Harper, he’d been solitary for a very long time. He’d had everything he could ever have wanted—success, power, luxury, decadence. Nothing had been off-bounds to him. And yet, he hadn’t been satisfied. Not by the money or the fame or the women who constantly sought him out.
“Then you’d better have a good long talk with your damn demon,” she told him, “because three brands are quite enough. Especially since one of them is a freaking choker that pretty much screams ‘property of Knox Thorne’.”
“Hmm, it really does say that, doesn’t it?” Knox feathered his fingertip over the thorny choker.
“You don’t have to sound so happy about that,” she grumbled.
How could he not be happy about it? He wanted everyone to know she was his. After centuries of dealing with users, manipulators, and gold diggers, Knox had become jaded. Lonely. Even empty. A numbness had started to creep in, and the things and people around him gradually lost their importance. Harper pierced right through that numbness. She’d not only showed him how empty his life was, she’d filled and lit it up.
Just looking at her made him want to cosset her. Shield her. Spoil her. Protect her. Tuck her away somewhere safe. Take care of her however he could. And he was very aware that she let him take care of her. She let herself rely on him because she knew it was what he needed, despite that her instincts would be to handle everything herself.
It angered him that she’d been forced to become self-sufficient at an early age and was used to taking care of herself. She’d never had anyone she could truly rely or depend on. No one she could turn to when times were tough. No one, more importantly, who would put her first. He’d become that person for her, determined that she’d never feel alone or second-best to anyone ever again.
It had taken time, but she’d come to trust that—unlike others in her life—he wouldn’t leave her. Not ever. She was now secure in their mating. As she’d warned him, though, there was a little part of her that would likely always worry that he’d leave her. He hated that. It meant he didn’t have every single piece of her, and he wanted it all. Also, he didn’t want her living with such a worry. He knew how it felt because before he’d told her he was an archdemon, he’d lived with it too.
“Baby, I don’t think you’re in any position to judge my demon on this,” said Knox. “Your demon left two brands on me.”
“Yeah, but not a damn choker. Seriously, why not just collar me?”
“Not a choker, no, but one of the brands is on my nape, so it’s highly visible. It even melds with the one it left on my back, making each brand look larger. Not exactly inconspicuous.” Which was part of what made the brands so hot. They were a statement to both Knox and the world that he was off-limits. “Admit it, you like that I’m marked.”
She sniffed but didn’t deny it. He loved that her demon was so possessive that it had branded him. It was enough that it and Harper accepted him. Who could have blamed her or her inner demon for turning away from him, given that archdemons were malignant, callous creatures that belonged in the depths of hell? But they hadn’t turned away. Instead, Harper had told him “big motherfucking deal”.
It wasn’t that she didn’t fear what he was. She did—and rightfully so. But she also didn’t care that he was part of the fabric of hell. She still loved and trusted him, still believed she was utterly safe with him. Although she’d struggled with the truth of what he was when Knox finally told her, it had only been for mere moments. She’d never backed away from him or the demon. Never rejected them, not even for a second.
He brushed his mouth over hers. “You’re a miracle to me, you know.” She frowned, so he bit her lip before she could argue. “It’s true.” It couldn’t be in any way whatsoever easy to be mated to someone as dominant, demanding, and possessive as Knox. Especially when he was overprotective to the point of making her crazy and not always entirely rational in his possessiveness. He was also extremely controlling—he knew that. Owned it. And he had his reasons for it.
When he was a child, a cult-like leader had snatched the control right out from under Knox. Every waking and sleeping moment of his life had been dictated by others—not just when he woke and when he slept, but when he ate, what he wore, and where he slept. He’d had no say over his own life. Any form of rebellion was punished severely.
His parents had eventually stood up to the leader only to have their throats slit. That was when, for the first time in his life, Knox lost control of his inner demon. It hadn’t been about defending himself. It had been about vengeance, pure and simple.
On joining the outside world, he’d vowed that he’d never again be under another person’s control. As an adult, he’d sought and seized everything he’d earlier been denied—knowledge, money, independence, success, possessions, and power. He’d become someone who lived life by his own set of rules, who moved at his own pace on his own schedule, and who took exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted it.
Any female would find all that hard to deal with. But Harper let him be, for the most part. Accepted him. Didn’t judge. In truth, she fucking owned him—mind, body, and soul. But he was okay with that, because he owned her just the same.
He was just about to ravish that fantasy mouth of hers once more when a small mind brushed against his—it held a question. Knox smiled. “Asher’s wondering where we are.”
Harper’s mouth curled. “Then let’s go see our boy.”
Knox’s fury still festered inside him like an open, infected wound. But the anger was no longer hot and blinding. It was cold and calculating. More importantly, it was contained and wouldn’t leak out onto Asher.
Locking his arms around Harper, Knox pyroported them to the nursery. He loved the room. Bright and airy with lemon walls, smooth pine furnishings, and woodland murals decorating walls and closet doors, it had a warm and serene atmosphere that invited a person inside.
As the flames died down, there was a heart-lifting giggle of excitement. Asher’s face lit up. “Da!” He dropped his truck on the plush carpet and raised his arms, flexing his little fists.
Knox scooped him up and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. “Just how crazy have you driven Meg?”
Asher blew bubbles at him.
“Thought so,” said Knox.
Harper smiled at the cute sight her guys made. If people had expected Knox to soften now that he was a father, they had thought wrong. If anything, having a child to protect had made him even more intense than before. Harper figured it was partly because his own parents had failed him—he was determined to do better by his son.
Lounging in the rocking chair, Meg gave Harper a stern look. “This is where you tell me what happened.”
Standing beside the chair, their butler, Dan, said, “Meg’s mind has been running away with itself.”
While Knox held Asher up high so the kid’s little finger could trace the white tree mural that spanned from floor to ceiling, Harper relayed the incident to Meg and Dan. “She didn’t fool him, though,” Harper said, looking at Asher. “No, she went to him in the form of someone he trusted, but he didn’t fall for it. The other kids didn’t sense that she wasn’t me, but he did.”
“Asher knows you by scent as well as by sight. She might have looked like you, but she won’t have had your scent,” Meg pointed out.
“She didn’t have any scent. Plus, she was saying, ‘Come to Mama. Time to go home.’ He doesn’t call me that.” Harper rubbed her nape. “He wasn’t scared. When his mind brushed mine to call for me, there was no alarm there. No impression of him needing help. It was more like a, ‘Hey, Mom, check this out.’ The same kind of touch as when he sees something he finds intriguing.”
Knox cast him a smile that glinted with pride. “He knew you’d protect him; that’s why he wasn’t scared.”
Harper snorted. “Or he’s a cocksure little bugger who was certain he was safe right inside that s
hield.”
Dan’s mouth quirked. “It was probably a bit of both.”
A flutter of wings was followed by a hoarse, grating “caw”.
Asher’s face split into a huge grin as he noticed the crow perched on a tree branch near his closed window. He even waved at the damn thing.
In an almost haughty movement, Dan flicked his hand. There was a slight push of power in the air, and the crow flew away.
“You can control animals?” Harper asked him.
“No, but I can communicate with them,” said Dan. “I merely told it to leave.”
“I need to go back to the hotel so I can be seen leaving it with Levi.” Knox handed Asher to Harper and then kissed her temple. “When I’m back, I’ll check over your wounds again.”
She rolled her eyes. “I think we can safely say that they’ll be fully healed soon.”
“I still want to check them out.” He wouldn’t be satisfied until they were completely gone. Knox ruffled Asher’s hair. “Be good for your mom.” Again, Asher blew raspberries at him. With a chuckle, Knox pyroported to his office within the hotel he’d earlier held his meeting.
Gun-metal eyes hard, Levi pushed out of the leather chair, brow cocked in question.
“Asher’s fine,” Knox assured the reaper. “The only person who was physically hurt was Harper, and her wounds were healing nicely last time I checked. We’re not sure who tried to take Asher, but we know that they’re not dead.”
Levi nodded, rolling back his wide shoulders. “Tanner filled me in on everything. It’s odd that the she-demon left no scent behind. Everyone has a scent.”
“Everyone bleeds, too, but there was no blood on Harper’s knife.”
Levi twisted his mouth. “What that she-demon did today was cocky. It’s likely that she followed Harper to Jolene’s house. She somehow kept a close eye on what was happening, ensured there was a distraction that would keep people occupied, and then pounced on what she felt was the right moment to enter the house. That kind of thing takes patience, smarts, and balls. That means we’re not dealing with a near-rogue, which is always good news.” He folded his arms across his broad chest. “Any theories on what kind of demon she could be?”
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