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“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.
/> He hadn’t once committed himself to a female, despite the loneliness that had plagued both him and his demon. The entity hadn’t ever pushed Knox to claim one. It had occasionally fixated on women but had tired of them quickly. Females were always interchangeable to the demon; none had stood out more than the other. Once the thrill of the hunt had been satisfied, the entity had lost interest.
“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.
