Page 4 of Knight’s Absolution

Which meant he probably knew by now that she’d gotten away from them.

She stepped onto the bare plot surrounded by caution tape. The facade the rest of the world saw was still intact. Her brother’s power was so strong he could make beings see, or not see, whatever he wanted. Although Luna hadn’t seen Ronan since they were children, his unmistakable power, so similar to hers, was all the proof she needed that he still lived.

She glanced around, then walked onto the property, through the facade, to the other side. To the place her brother had created, hiding them from the world. A mansion stood, tall and ugly. Imposing.

The door opened as she approached, Spencer filling the space. His lined face was frozen, and his eyes were almost black, an expression she’d seen on him many times. It happened when he was worried.

“Is he back?” Luna asked as she walked inside. She still hadn’t sensed him.

“Not yet. They’re all in an uproar that Grace escaped, though. He was furious, Luna. I’ve never seen him like that.”

“Do you think he knows it was me?”

Spencer swallowed, his eyes all black now. “I don’t know.”

She reached into her pocket, pulling out the phone that she’d bought on her way home and handed it to the only person in the world she could trust. “I’ve put Grace’s number on this. I don’t know what will happen when Sir gets back or how long I’ll be away. But I need you to message her, tell her where they can find the other demi being held, then destroy it.”

She had rubbed the number off her arm as soon as she’d programmed it into the phone. As generous as Grace’s offer was, she couldn’t risk being caught with it. For Ronan’s sake. She and her brother had only survived this long because they were useful.

But Sir liked to assert his authority, and she could only assume the sadistic prick did the same with her brother. He pushed her to her limits, testing her capacity for survival. One day he’d take it too far; one day he’d kill her. Seeing as dying wasn’t the plan, she needed to kill him first. But she couldn’t do that until she found her brother.

Wherever Sir kept him had to be close, but she’d yet to find where.

Spencer touched her arm. “Please, take some of my blood. Feed. You won’t survive if he locks you away now. You’re already weak.”

Luna’s stomach rebelled. “No.”

Hurt filled his eyes.

“I can’t…won’t do that to you.” I’d die before I did that. “Thank you, but I won’t do it.”

It would turn their relationship into something that they would never be able to come back from. She never wanted Spencer to see her like that.

She’d only ever drunk Sir’s blood. She’d never been permitted to drink from others, and never had. It was another way he controlled and manipulated her. He’d wanted her to crave him, hunger for him even when his blood made her so sick she barely stopped herself from throwing up after feeding.

Again an image of Gunner filled her head, the way he’d pinned her to the seat. Her fangs had actually tingled—

The door flew open, and Sir stalked in. His eyes were glowing, the veins in his throat bulging, lips peeled back.

“You betrayed me! Again!” he roared. “I have loved you, taken care of you, given you everything you ever wanted, and this is how you repay me?”

She said nothing. There was nothing she could say to convince him otherwise, not when he had already made up his mind.

As for his love? If this was love, she was glad she didn’t have to experience it. And anyway, his love of power, not her, was what drew him to her family. His brand of love meant slaughtering her mother in front of her, kidnapping her and her brother, then tearing them apart.

She’d heard Ronan’s cries through the wall, had heard him calling for her, for their mother, into the night. For dhampir, it was the connection to their human mothers that allowed them to have human emotions. If severed before they gained their powers, they’d lose the ability to feel. Luna was young when Sir came for her, she couldn’t remember what it felt like to have the full spectrum of emotions, but her brother’s cries that night still haunted her.

He’d been taken away the next day. She hadn’t seen him since, had only felt him, felt his presence, his power come into being, felt it grow.

Sir had appointed himself as some kind of twisted father figure. Until her hunger for blood began at age sixteen, then he’d become something else. And he’d made her pay for every ounce of blood he’d given her.

She finally gained her powers a year ago, and he had been taking full advantage of them since.

The male who had torn her life apart strode toward her now, and she forced herself to hold her ground, to rein in her anger. She couldn’t fight him, and there was no point running, no escape, no rescue from what was about to happen.

He backhanded her, knocking her to the floor, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the hall, down the stairs to the basement.

She’d known this was the price she’d pay, and if given the chance, she’d do the same thing all over again. She’d still help Gunner and Grace and the other demi.