BURN (13 page)

“He takes you to work every morning and hangs around outside most of the day. Why?” he demanded.

“I’m confused by the fact that you believe this is your business.”

“He works for Knox Thorne, doesn’t he?” Royce stepped closer, pissing off her demon. It wanted to claw his face right off his skull. “I saw him come in here with Thorne once.” He spoke like there was some kind of conspiracy and he was onto it. “Are you fucking Thorne? Is he why you won’t come back to me?”

What a fucking asshole. “Royce, I won’t come back to you for a number of reasons – primarily because you seem to think that monogamy is a shade a brown.”

“I apologized for that. She meant nothing to me.”

“Which is exactly why it should have been easy to turn her down. But you didn’t.”

“So let’s shout this out so we can move forward. Slap me. Kick me. Call me a dog.”

“Why? Dogs are loyal.”

“Look, I know I did wrong. Believe me when I say I hate myself for it. We can work this out. I miss you, Harper.”

She grabbed her purse and keys. “Well, as you can see, I’m drowning in a river of tears.” She ushered him out of the studio. “Now if you’re done, I have things to do.”

Outside, he continued speaking even as she locked the front door. “I’ve told you over and over, I’m sorry and I hate that I’ve hurt you. What do you want me to do?”

She faced him. “Honestly? Stick your cock in a bees nest. Call me and let me know how that goes.” Flashing him a sweet, acidic smile, she then made her way to Tanner, who was holding the car door open. “Hey, Tanner.”

“Problem?” He flicked his gaze to Royce.

She sighed. “I just don’t understand your gender. Do you?”

Tanner held up his hands. “This isn’t a conversation that could go well for me.”

Smiling, she slid into the car. “So true.” Within seconds, they were driving on-route to her apartment. She hadn’t seen Knox for four days, since he’d been on a business trip. In that time, though, he’d contacted her telepathically every night.

The days apart had given her a little time to get used to their psychic bond. It was true that it was impossible to ever feel alone when you were anchored. His mind constantly stroked hers instinctively yet idly. It was comforting. She could feel him and was always aware of him on some level, yet she couldn’t sense him or his feelings as the bond wasn’t intrusive.

As he was returning from his trip today, they had made plans to see each other tomorrow. He wanted to talk about the gathering for the whole Monarch business that was occurring in one of his Underground hotels in just two days. The time running up to the gathering had flown over fast, and during that time Knox had taken her to his home every night, had fucked her hard and long with an urgency that told her he was taking advantage of what time they had before his demon withdrew from her on a sexual level. The demon would accept her as its anchor, but it wouldn’t wish to keep her as anything more.

Up to now, his demon wasn’t at all bored. She knew it because the brand on her breast hadn’t faded. She could admit that she checked it each morning and evening, wanting to be mentally prepared for the demon’s withdrawal. Considering how obsessed her own demon was with Knox and the predator that lived within him, Harper was pretty sure that her demon would want to burn shit down when his lost interest.

Forcing her mind off the matter, she spoke to Tanner. “I’m surprised you don’t sometimes give yourself a break and let either Keenan or Larkin take over.”

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Surprised? Why?”

“You must get bored of babysitting me.” Her life wasn’t exactly exciting.

“You’re important to Knox, which makes you important to me.”

“This babysitting gig still has to gall you on some level. You’re a sentinel.” He was meant for more than this.

“Knox would never trust anyone but a sentinel with your safety. I volunteered for the position.”

“Dear God, why?”

He chuckled. “I knew I was the best choice. Levi has always been Knox’s personal guard and it would be better for it to remain that way. Keenan and Larkin wouldn’t have been good guards for you. Keenan would have flirted with you, and Larkin would have conspired with you to do crazy shit just because she’s weird like that. Both would have driven Knox insane, which is never a good thing.”

She nodded. “Got ya.”

“Sometimes I think—” He grunted as his whole body seemed to jolt. Then he slumped in his seat a mere second before the car flipped in the air once, twice, three times and landed upside down. Then it was sliding along the ground, making the metal hood screech. Eventually, it ground to a halt.
What the fuck?

Coughing, she called out, “Tanner! Tanner!” Nothing. Her inner demon was at serious risk of freaking out.

Instinctively, she spoke to the one person she knew would come.
Um, Knox, we’ve got a problem here.
Okay, maybe that was understating things a little, but she didn’t want him to lose his shit.

What sort of problem?
His voice was tense, hard.

Undoing her seatbelt, she awkwardly fell to the ground. Ow.
Well, the car kind of flipped over a few times, like a huge wind caught it up and hurled it. That was after Tanner suddenly lost unconsciousness. And…oh shit.

What?

Well, a black SUV is heading right for us.

Where are you?
It was a rumble of danger.

It’s hard to tell.
Scanning her surroundings as best she could, she realized…
We’re in an alley. Tanner had only been driving for maybe five minutes or so; the alley can’t be far from the studio.
And as the alley was blocked off on one side, it meant there was no way out. But she wouldn’t have left without Tanner anyway.

I’ll come for you.

She knew he would. She also knew he was beyond pissed and there was a very good chance these people would die. Grabbing Tanner’s arm, she shook him. “Tanner, wake up!” she hissed. Noticing the blood trickling out of his ears and nose, she suspected he’d taken a psychic blow to the head.

Harper stilled at the sound of car doors swinging open. Then there were urgent footsteps crunching on the gravel.
Two
sets of footsteps, she sensed. The door on her right was abruptly yanked open. A hand closed tightly around her arm and snatched her out of the vehicle. That same hand shoved her toward the blond muscular asshole now rounding the Bentley; both males reeked of something which made both her and her inner demon tense: magick.

So she was up against dark practitioners. That wasn’t good.

She didn’t scream or fight. That would only tempt them to deal her a psychic blow to the mind that would render her defenseless. For them to have not already done so, they believed she would be easy to handle. How silly.

The blond smiled at her, looking cool and smug. It was the smugness that irritated her the most. It also irked her demon, who saw it as a challenge to prove what it could do – to demonstrate just how badly they had misjudged their target. Unfortunately, neither of the practitioners were close enough to touch; if she dived at one, the other would attack her.

“You’ll come with us,” the blond stated, scratching at his goatee.

“Um, actually I won’t.”

“You should—”

“You don’t want me to go with you,” she said in a compelling voice. He blinked repeatedly. “You don’t want to hurt me.” Sphinxes didn’t befuddle people with riddles as mythology stated, but they did have the natural ability to confuse people. She’d much rather stab them with her blade, but they couldn’t die until Knox had interrogated them.

“What are you doing to him?” demanded the other practitioner.

“You don’t care about that,” she told him in that same compelling voice. “You don’t remember who he is. You don’t remember why you’re here.”

The dark-skinned male stumbled. “What’s happening?”

Harper looked back at the other practitioner…only to see that he was doing some kind of silent chant. Something heavy and solid slammed into her head. She swayed and staggered, blinking repeatedly. Her vision began to darken around the edges as she fell back against the car and slid to the ground. But she fought the fog and the darkness closing in on her, and she somehow held onto consciousness.

His eyes widened as he struggled to his feet. “That’s not possible.”

A growl made everyone freeze. Then the Bentley shook as if something was struggling to get out.
Tanner
. By the sounds of it, he’d let out his inner demon.

A mere moment later, the demon was out; launching itself in the air and over the car to land in front of Harper, growling at the practitioners. Hellhounds were like wolves on steroids, yet they had a majestic air about them. They had fur as black as coal, eyes as red as blood, and they brought with them the scent of burning brimstone.

Gripping the hound’s fur, she struggled to her feet, her head still throbbing with pain. “Motherfucking motherfuckers need to motherfucking die.”

In full agreement with that, her demon barged its way to the surface just as it whipped out the stiletto blade and infused it with hellfire. Loving the fear that wafted from the practitioners, it spoke and as it petted the hellhound. “You cannot win this. Of course, you could try. You could attempt to take out myself or the hellhound. It might even work. But while you spend precious time doing a little chant, the other of us will be on you. That means that at least one of you will die.”

Harper retained control then with a hiss. “But I won’t.”

A roar split the air. A roar of fire, she realized a moment later. The fire hissed, cracked, and popped. The flames died away, revealing...

“Knox?” He could teleport using fire? Shit, no wonder he’d gotten to her so quickly when Silas paid her a visit.

His dark eyes roamed over her, absorbing every detail, noting the cut on her forehead. Then those eyes fixed on the practitioners, who were backing up. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave.” Fire shot out of his palm like it was a flamethrower, enclosing the practitioners in a circle. It might have looked like a rope of fire…if it didn’t have the head of a dragon and wasn’t slithering along the ground, hissing and spitting at its prisoners. And that wasn’t weird at all.

He stalked toward the two males, the image of absolute composure. But he looked
too
composed,
too
calm – so much so that it was terrifying. “You deliberately targeted my anchor. Why?” The question was spoken very steadily, yet it was coated in menace.

The blond swallowed hard. “I didn’t know she’s your anchor.”

“I find that very difficult to believe. My anchor would be a prize for any dark practitioner. But such a practitioner would need to be either mindless or desperate for death. Which are you?” He sounded genuinely curious, but Harper knew he was playing with them – like a predator toyed with its prey.

“I’m telling the truth,” the blond vowed, “we didn’t know who she was to you. Someone wants her, but we weren’t told why or what for. Just that we’d be paid well.”

“And who is this someone?”

“We can’t tell you.”

Knox stuffed his hands in his pockets, seeming both casual and bored. “Ah, let me guess. You’re under a compulsion.”

Both practitioners nodded, flinching as the fire dragon hissed at them.

“I think I’ll see for myself if that’s true.”

The blond, groaning in agony through clenched teeth, probably would have fallen to his knees if his friend hadn’t caught him. After a moment, he calmed and it was clear that Knox had withdrew from his mind. Then it was the other practitioner that cried out in pain, knees shaking. He sagged when it was over.

“You’re telling me the truth. That’s good.” Knox nodded his head. “Very good. But…there’s something you weren’t planning to tell me. You didn’t know she was my anchor, that’s true. But you suspected it.” The blond shook his head wildly. “Yes, yes you did. You heard the rumors, and when you saw my sentinel with her you wondered if just maybe those rumors were true. And that made you excited.”

Shaking his head again, the blond blurted out, “No, we—”

“You thought draining my anchor of power would somehow drain me also. You decided to keep her for yourselves instead of handing her over to someone else. You planned to drain her using sex magick. She would have been a sexual sacrifice.”

Sick fucking bastards. Her inner demon was now pretty eager to watch Knox destroy them.

“That excitement died down when she fought back, however.” As the blond opened his mouth to speak, Knox shot him a hard look. “I don’t accept excuses. They mean nothing to me.
You
mean nothing to me.”

“We can show you where we were supposed to take her, you’ll be able to see who hired us! You can use us!”

“I’ve been in your mind. I already know where you were told to take her. There would be no sense in me going there, however. You were both psychically bugged.”

The blond exchanged a confused look with his friend. “What does that mean?”

“Someone has been listening to your every thought, watching your every move,” Knox told them. “They know you failed. I’ve destroyed the bugs, which means they won’t see what happens next. I think it will be better to let them guess.”