Page 8 of Knight’s Absolution

Because of her, they’d been able to take out a lot of the demon army tasked with guarding the demi as well.

What they hadn’t done was find the little goth female who had helped them or the powerful demon behind it all.

Roc sneered. “Fuckers are back to their old tricks.”

They both landed and walked onto the empty lot, turning, searching the shadows. They’d been ambushed like this before. Demons seeming to vanish into thin air only to pop back up with a whole bunch of their buddies. Gunner stood there stiffly, Roc at his side, and waited, expecting it.

But nothing happened.

No hoard of demons holding rusty knives appeared, and it didn’t look as if the two leathren had any intention of coming back either.

“Let’s keep searching the area,” Gunner said, because something seriously fucked up was going on.

CHAPTER 2

Luna lay in the dark, strange sensations in her belly growing stronger, twisting as if they were in some kind of battle.

Sir had his arms slung over her waist, his naked body pressed against her back, his fingers still deep in her hair, fisting tight even in sleep.

She wanted to pull from his fucking hold, tear a leg off the bedside table and stab him with it. Then she wanted to go to the bathroom and wipe the stickiness from between her legs, followed by shoving her fingers down her throat and vomiting up his blood, hot and toxic, sitting in her stomach.

Escape the awful way her body felt every time she drank from him.

She wouldn’t do either of those things. He’d let her out of the basement a week ago, after two weeks without blood, food, or water. Without a soul to speak to. She’d been starved and on the verge of something…something she couldn’t describe when he dragged her out.

Ever since, the strange sensations that moved through her body had increased, intensified.

She didn’t want to believe it, but she was almost positive that what she was experiencing were other emotions awakening inside her. Why now? And how the hell could she stop it?

How would she do this, live this, if she felt every moment of it?

The anger inside her increased, making her shake. Sir had been keeping her hungry since he let her out, only feeding her a small amount, then shoving her away—until tonight.

Now his blood was working its way through her body—strengthening her and weakening her at the same time. She slapped her hand over her mouth when it tried to climb back up her throat. Somehow, she managed to hold it down, breathing through her nose as its toxic roots reached out, taking hold of her, mutating her power into something it should have never been. Making her his weapon.

His creature.

She didn’t know what type of blood her kind usually fed on, but she was certain it wasn’t demon. She knew little about her people, but surely feeding should sustain you, not make you impossibly ill.

Sir’s hold relaxed, and she managed to ease away from him a little, cringing when she felt another rush of liquid between her thighs. Using the sheet, she wiped it away. As usual, she’d been too starved, too focused on drinking to pay attention to the way he’d taken his payment from her body.

The same way he’d been doing since she was sixteen.

In movies and when she’d occasionally seen the demons around them have sex, they seemed to enjoy it, to take pleasure from each other’s bodies. Luna couldn’t comprehend it. She didn’t know what pleasure was. Humans, demons, others felt it, but it was a mystery to her.

It was as if she’d been physically and emotionally switched off. And she was thankful for that. If she regained more human emotions now—

She didn’t want to think what that would mean for her.

Right now, the only things she knew, that she understood, was anger—and hunger—the kind that came with pain, like the agony she’d experienced during her two-week stay in the basement.

Sir usually only wanted her body for sex when she fed from him. He said he had no choice. More often than not, that meant once a week, since that was all the feeding he allowed her to have. But since he’d only been feeding her a little at a time until tonight, she’d had to endure his attentions several times this week.

With a groan, he rolled to his back, releasing her hair completely.

She should stay where she was, but she couldn’t bear it another moment and slid from the bed, rushing to the bathroom to quickly clean up—something he didn’t permit. He wanted his scent on her, wanted all the other demons in his army to know she was his.

When she walked back into the bedroom, it was dark and quiet, apart from Sir’s deep, slow breathing. She took in his still form.