A male scream.
Knox whirled toward the sound, tracking it through the flames. He heard the very familiar sound of his mate’s voice, but it was her demon speaking.
“If it’s death you seek you may have it.”
Another male scream, this one closer, rang through the air.
Knox hastened his steps, edging his way toward the —
And there she was. Standing with her back to him on a fire-free patch of metal that was covered with a dirty carpet – all that was left of the trailer. Her wings were blazing and surrounded by a strange kind of faint magma aura.
He stepped out of the fire and up onto the carpet, making the metal base creak and rock slightly. “Harper?”
She slowly turned her head to glance over her shoulder, and pure black eyes bore into his. He went absolutely still. Her demon was in control, and that wasn’t good; not if the demon was as furious as the fire. A need for vengeance could be riding it hard, even if the threats were now nothing but ashes. And a demon in that state was almost as bad as a rogue.
It didn’t react to his presence. Didn’t say anything. Just stared at him through chillingly cold eyes, its expression completely blank. He wasn’t sure if it even recognized him. That would be bad, since he didn’t want to end up having to defend himself against his own mate. “Do you know who I am?”
The demon slowly turned to face him, and he sucked in a sharp breath. There was a shiny silver and black bruise on one side of her face, as if something big and hard had smashed into it. Blood was dripping from a thin, deep slash on her temple. The skin of her upper chest was raw, blistered, and peeling. There was a clump of blood so dark it was almost black crusted around her earlobe. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, blood was dripping from a slice just above her blood-soaked boy shorts. Son of a bitch.
His demon roared in his head and lunged to the surface, but Knox beat him back just in time. She needed a calm influence, not his demon. Still, it was hard to subdue the entity when he himself was boiling with the same ice-cold rage. “Baby… I should have got here sooner, I’m sorry.”
If the apology meant anything to the demon, it didn’t show it. Just continued to stare at him, face blank. A full-body tremor ran through its body – a jerky movement that made him think of a junkie. It was totally bloated on the power it was wielding over the flames. Knox could completely understand why. He knew how it felt for his own demon: energizing, intoxicating, a rush like no other. And very, very hard to come down from, especially for a demon in a rage. Shit.
Forcing his tone to stay smooth as he spoke over the roaring fire, he repeated, “Do you know who I am?”
It gave a slow nod.
Despite his relief, he didn’t cross the space between them. He wasn’t sure how his proximity would be received at that moment. Mate or not, the demon could be angry with him for not coming sooner and saving it from Crow. “You’re safe now.”
“They hurt her,” it told him in a disembodied voice that had a cutting edge to it. Incredibly protective of Harper, the demon was as mightily and righteously pissed as he’d expected.
Fuck, so was he – especially when he could see and smell her blood. But he put his own emotions on lockdown; this was about his mate now. Harper had once brought him back when his demon took over, and now he needed to do the same for her. He also needed to find out who “they” were. One was obviously Crow, but the other… he wasn’t sure.
“They can’t hurt her again,” said Knox, taking a slow and risky step forward. Thankfully, the demon didn’t warn him off.
“They would have killed her,” it added, hand twitching slightly.
“I know, but they’re gone.” No doubt consumed by the flames.
“Dead,” it confirmed. “They deserved it.”
“They did. You’re safe now,” he said once again, but the demon still didn’t appear at all appeased by that fact. Come back to me, Harper, he coaxed.
“They wanted to kill you.”
“But they didn’t.” He risked taking another step forward. “You stopped them.” His demon wanted Knox to give it control and let it speak to the entity. It was a good idea but, honestly, he didn’t trust his demon not to join in on the fun. “You need to calm the flames.”
Another fine tremor worked through the demon. “I like them.”
Fuck. It was only right then that Knox really understood how hard it must have been for Harper to bring him back when he’d been in the same state; how scared she must have felt that she wouldn’t be enough to tempt him and his demon away from the power and the rush. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he found himself beset by self-doubt.
Harper, baby, you need to fight your demon and you need to fight her hard. I’m not sure I can do this on my own. He felt her mind brush his. It was a slow, drowsy touch. He guessed she was exhausted from trying to force her raging demon to retreat. If so, he’d have no help with this.
“You’ll destroy everything and everyone if you don’t calm the flames,” he told it.
“Yes, but then nothing would hurt her again.”
Which was clearly all the demon cared about while it was still so hung up on what had happened to Harper and too high on power. There would be no reasoning with the entity. His only real hope of easing those flames was if he got the demon to pull back and let Harper resurface. Easier said than done, of course.
He took another step forward, but he froze when the demon flapped its wings. Shit, he knew how fast and adept those wings were; it would be a nightmare to catch the demon – not to mention a sight that would attract human attention – if it flew off. “I need Harper right now.”