BURN (20 page)

“I was reminding you that you’re mine.” He buried his hand in her hair, loving the fruity smell and silken feel of it. “I’m not used to being possessive of another person. It’s also very new to my demon. Neither of us are good at processing it yet. Downstairs, I wanted to disembowel Dario. My demon was leaning more toward burning him alive on the spot. The only reason it held back was that Dario didn’t dispute its claim on you.”

“Its claim on me?”

“You haven’t worked it out yet? It wants to keep you. It wants to take you as its mate.”

It was only right then, as happiness threatened to burst through her, that Harper realized she’d gone and done what she’d always feared doing: she’d fallen for a demon. Fallen hard. Technically, it should have made her want to run. It didn’t, though, because she wanted him more than she wanted to protect herself. So why
didn’t
happiness fill her at the thought that he felt the same? She generally distrusted any situation where she got what she wanted. In her experience, if it seemed too good to be true, it wasn’t at all true.

“Always so wary,” Knox mused with a smile.

“See it from my point of view. You were very clear that your demon would soon lose interest. Now you’re saying it wants me to stick around.”

“Not just ‘stick around.’ It wants to keep you. Collect you. Own you.” The entity inside every demon was incapable of caring for others; it didn’t have the emotional capacity for that. But when it became as firmly attached to a person as Knox’s demon now was to Harper, it wanted to own them – and it never let them go. “It has always been possessive of you. So possessive that it branded you. Twice. But downstairs, the depth of its possessive fury surprised me. Then I sensed what had built that possessiveness to such a level, what fueled it. And I understood.”

“Good, ’cause I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You gave it what no one else has ever given it: total acceptance.”

“But your sentinels—”

“Are loyal to me, but there’s still that wariness of me and my demon. And there should be. They’re smart to fear us. But you…you believe it will never harm you, you
trust
it to never do so, and you accept it despite your fear.” She’d watched it call on the flames of hell, watched it destroy two practitioners. But she hadn’t backed away, even though there had been fear in her eyes and scent. The demon usually liked the scent of fear, but it hadn’t liked the taint of it in Harper. “And even though it spooked you a little downstairs with its jealousy, you didn’t reject it just now. In doing all that, you sealed your fate. It’s keeping you.”

“You know, it’s possible that this is because I’m your anchor. The demon could be a little confused—”

Knox shook his head. “It doesn’t think of sex on the same level that it thinks of anchors. To the demon, the first is a basic need, and the other is a psychic need. This attachment it formed to you isn’t about needs, it’s about
you.
” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “My demon’s so powerful that it considers everyone prey. That’s part of what makes it very easily bored, but that also makes it lonely.

“When the demon pursues a female, it’s more about the conquest. It doesn’t think of any woman as unique, they’re interchangeable to it. And it reads people so well that it sees everyone as predictable. But you…it never knows what you’ll do or say next. You not only pretty much snort at my forceful personality, you stand up to the demon if you think it’s pushing you too hard. You intrigue it and accept it. Like I said, you sealed your fate.”

It was all very well that his demon wanted to keep her and take her as its mate, but…“What about you? What do you want?”

“I’m not a good choice for you, Harper.” He wouldn’t lie to her. “I don’t have a lot of good in me.” When she looked like she might argue, he said, “I’m not a self-loather, I’m a realist. The truth is that I’m as cunning and calculated as they say. I manipulate, I hurt, and I destroy to get what I want. You’ve seen what I’m capable of. You can imagine what damage and pain I can cause. I’d never harm you, but I have and I will harm others if and when I have to. I’ll always be ruthless and controlling. You can do better. But…it’s too late for you. I told you before, you belong to me. I won’t let you go.”

It wasn’t because she was his anchor, it was because she was Harper. He had always considered himself too emotionally disconnected to ever want a mate. Especially since he was so restless and discontented despite having everything he wanted…or maybe it was
because
he had everything he wanted. The fact was that he was just as attached to Harper as his demon was. Neither he nor the predator within him was willing to give her up. “There’s no going back.”

As he bent to lick over the brand circling her breast, she asked, “You’re not going to ask me what I want?”

“No.” He latched onto her nipple, sucking hard. “It’s not relevant.”

“What do you mean
it’s not relevant
?”

Her prickly tone made him smile. “You know how our kind works. They never give up what’s theirs. Do you honestly think that anything you say would make me walk away?”

“Did it occur to you that I might not want to walk away?”

Not really. His little sphinx had a lot of issues. “Are you telling me that, for once, you’re going to accept a claim on you without a struggle? That you want me as your mate?”

“Well, yeah. I can’t exactly struggle when me and my demon are just as gone for you and yours, can I?” The crooked smile that always heated her blood surfaced on his face.

“No, you can’t.” He rolled her onto her back, hiked up one leg, and drove himself deep. “All mine.”

If there was one thing capable of shitting on Knox’s mood, it was coming out of the shower to hear Harper arguing with an irritating fucker via her cell phone. ‘Royce the Rodent’ Khloë called him. Knox thought it was an accurate description. The human persisted in sending Harper apologetic text messages that she pointedly ignored. But the silent treatment didn’t seem to be working, because he was bothering her again. The human definitely needed dealing with.

As she ended the call and turned to Knox, her expression inscrutable, he growled, “The human?”

Harper nodded. “I told him he has to be mistaken but…he said there are snakes outside my apartment.”

Nothing she said could have shocked Knox more. “There are, what?”

“I gotta go there.”

Minutes later, Levi drove them and Tanner to her apartment. As they pulled up outside and she caught a glimpse of exotic-looking snakes slithering over her front door, she shuddered. “That’s just freaky.”

Royce, who was leaning against what was presumably his car, came rushing over as they exited the Bentley. “I told you I wasn’t lying. Do we call pest control?”

Knox dismissed the human with a look. “We can take things from here. You can go.”

Royce bristled. “I’m staying.”

Knox ground his teeth. If they had the time for this shit, he would be happy to deal with the fucker. Right then, they had more pressing matters. “Go, Mr. Yardley.”

“Don’t think you get to tell me what to do.” Royce clenched his fists. “I’m not stupid, I know you’re sleeping with Harper. But I also know it won’t last. You’ve got a reputation for being a player. He’s not serious about you, Harper. Everything I’ve read about him says he’s never been in a real relationship and he doesn’t want one. He’s just using you.”

Tanner growled. “Okay, you really need to leave.”

“No, Harper’s—”

“Mine,” stated Knox silkily, pushing into the human’s personal space until they were nose to nose. “That means you are no one to her, and she is no one to you. Are we clear?”

Harper went to speak, to tell Royce to leave, but Levi gave a quick shake of the head. She understood. Knox needed to deliver his warning. It was a guy thing.

“You’ll throw her aside within a week. I’m the one who loves her.” Ignoring Harper’s snort, Royce went on, “If I hadn’t messed up and she hadn’t left me—”

“I’d have taken her from you,” finished Knox. He wasn’t lying. He’d have pursued Harper whether she was single or not; he’d have done whatever it took to lure her away from the human in front of him. “Like I said, she’s mine. You
will
stop calling her, stop texting her, stop bothering her at work, and stop turning up at her apartment. Or life could get very, very hard for you.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I don’t like rhetorical questions.” Knox’s demon was dangerously close to the surface, stirred by both the human and the immediate threat to Harper. The demon’s ire slipped into his tone and expression as Knox added, “In simplistic terms, if you don’t leave now, I’ll make your life hell in a way you can’t even comprehend. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

Whatever Royce saw in Knox’s eyes made him blanch and take a step back. Knox slanted a glance at Levi. Understanding, the sentinel urged the human to his vehicle. Royce ranted a little about being manhandled, but he eventually sped away in his car. Knox threaded his fingers through Harper’s as he led her toward her apartment. “He’s a waste of skin, Harper. I don’t understand what you saw in him.”

“Me neither. But I’m more confused by
this
.” As they came to stand in front of her door, she said, “I mean, what the fuck? Why would—?” A snake coiled and launched itself at Harper with a speed that shocked her. “Shit!” A hand shot out and caught it before it could reach her. Hellfire rushed from Knox’s hand to engulf the snake’s body. Then it was gone; completely vanquished. “Um. Thanks.”

“I’ve seen this before. The snakes aren’t real. We can touch them, and they can bite. But they’re not animals, they’re part of a spell. Unravel the spell, and they disappear.”

“Dark practitioners at work again,” Tanner growled, radiating more protective energy than usual as he stood beside Harper – probably because Knox had announced to him and Levi in the Bentley that he’d taken her as his mate. Neither sentinel had seemed all that surprised.

Harper turned to Knox. “You said this is a spell. What kind of spell? I mean, what is its purpose? To stop me from going inside?”

“The intention isn’t to keep you out of your apartment,” said Knox, ‘feeling’ the energy of the spell and ‘reading’ it. “There are more snakes inside. All poisonous and in an aggressive state. Their venom is preternatural, and it has one purpose.”

“What does it do?” asked Levi.

“Corrupts,” replied Knox. “Whatever they bite will decay, rot, and degenerate to ash.”

Harper gaped. “Are you saying that if their venom touches any of my stuff, it’ll basically crumble to nothing?”

“Yes. But their target is
you
.”

As if to prove it, another snake launched itself at her. Tanner caught that one and sharply folded it backwards, snapping its neck. Ooookay.

“Oh my God!” exclaimed a female voice behind them as Levi destroyed the last two snakes with small balls of hellfire.

Turning, Harper blinked. It was obviously a day for surprises. Knox and his sentinels all positioned themselves in front of her.

Knox asked suspiciously, “What are you doing here, Carla?”

The woman clasped her hands in front of her as she slowly walked forward, dancing her alarmed gaze from Knox to where the snakes once were. “I, um, I wanted to talk to Harper. Larkin wouldn’t tell me where she was – only that she wasn’t in the hotel. I thought she might have gone home.”

Knox narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”

“Where did the snakes come from?”

“Now that’s a very good question.”

Carla stumbled before coming to an abrupt halt. “You suspect me?”

More interested in the little matter of a spell being put on her home, Harper asked Knox, “Can you unravel the spell?”

He shook his head. “Only another practitioner or an incantor can do that.” Incantors were demons that could use magick.

“I know a few incantors,” said Levi. “I can call one, have her come down here. She should be able to understand and untangle the threads of the spell.”

“You do that.” Knox curled an arm around Harper. “Come on, let’s go.”

As Tanner opened the rear door of the Bentley, Carla stepped forward. “Wait, Harper, I – I was hoping we could talk. Just for a minute. Please?”

Harper cocked her head. “Why? You want to make nice with me to be sure I don’t ask Knox to cast you out of the lair? Or are you panicking that I’ll blab about our sharing of DNA to your family?”

Carla’s shoulders slumped. She looked defeated and hurt. “I should have known there was no point in this. The imps have all turned you against me.”

Harper snorted. “Oh no, Carla, you did that all on your own.” Harper hopped into the Bentley, puffing out a long breath. What a fucking day.

Sliding close to her, Knox combed his fingers through her hair as the car began to move. “You okay?”

“No, I’m pissed. As if it’s not bad enough that someone wants me dead, I had a lot of sentimental stuff in my apartment from all the places I’ve been. It’s a good chance that most of it is ashes now. I’ll have to buy new furniture and—”