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Another flame hooked around the throat of a female practitioner and tossed her into the fire. A black flame then lashed out like a whip and wrapped around the ankle of a chanting practitioner, causing him to fall flat on his face. He screamed for help, scrabbling at the floor for purchase, but the flame dragged him into the fire.
“Harper, we’re dead if those flames keep coming!” shouted Larkin, face red from the blistering heat.
She was right, but the figure controlling them didn’t appear in a rush to ease them. It stood there, calm as you please, as it watched the destruction around it. The flames were licking along the walls of the large building, ready to devour it. Each time she breathed and took that hot air into her lungs, her chest felt tighter.
“Call to him, tell him to stop! Yell at him telepathically!”
“There’s a shield of fire between his mind and mine.” Once more, Harper attempted to fierce it, but it held strong.
“If he doesn’t pull back, he’ll kill us all!”
Harper was about to reassure her that Knox would stop, that he had the control to pull back, but then she remembered something he’d once said. ‘If anything happened to you, if you were taken from me, that control would be gone.’ More of his words came to her…‘I’d make them all pay. But I wouldn’t stop there. It wouldn’t be enough. Not for me, not for my demon. So many would die, so much would be destroyed.’
It was only now – as the flames ate at everything they touched, as the practitioners screamed in agony, and as the building began to creak and weaken beneath their feet – that Harper truly understood the severity of his warnings.
Desperate, Harper psychically battered at the shield between her and Knox. It hurt like hell, but she kept going; slamming her mind against his, crashing her psychically spiked shields into the wall of fire, calling on every single ounce of psychic energy she had and—
Screaming, Harper curled in on herself as the shield cracked and a scorching heat poured into her mind, flooding every crevice, and searing everything it touched. The agony spread like wildfire, making her back arch as it crackled its way down her spine, boiling her skin until it sweltered and sizzled. The pain ate every vertebrae, every nerve, every muscle, and every ligament.
Tears burned her eyes. She was going to die. She was. No one could live through this.
Her demon panicked, fought to surface and somehow help, but it was trapped. Harper screamed again as the scalding pain blasted the space between her shoulder blades, making her bones groan under the strain and her skin peel. She could smell her flesh burning, could hear it sizzling. Then it was like something ripped the skin off her back. A scream slid through her gritted teeth and she—
The pain stopped. Just stopped.
“Oh! My! God!”
Frowning at Larkin’s exclamation, Harper went to speak when she suddenly became aware that something was very different. Very wrong? Her demon didn’t think so.
“You have wings, Harper!”
Wait, she what? Sure Larkin was wrong, Harper glanced behind her and…“Oh, my God.” She had motherfucking wings. They were…well, they were gossamer. A striking gold with strands of red and black. Well, fuck.
The building shuddered and creaked once more. It wasn’t going to last long.
“Harper, if there’s something you can do, do it now!”
There was really only one thing she could do. There was a good chance it wouldn’t work, but she was fresh out of ideas. Taking a preparatory breath, Harper jumped to her feet, rushed across the roof, and leaped into the flames – heading straight for the figure of fire. Because there was another thing that Knox had once said…‘The flames can’t burn you, Harper. Because they’re me. And you’re right, I’d never harm you.’
She’d love to say she flew, but it was more like she shakily soared through the fire and, fuck, it was hot! The flames scorched her skin, zapped every nerve ending in her body, as she headed for him. But they didn’t hurt her. Somewhat ungracefully crashing into him, she picked him up, ready to fly them out of the flames. Not yet adept at flying, however, she lost her balance and they slammed to the ground, rolling several times.
As they came to a halt with her straddling him, Harper distantly registered that she might have broken a few ribs and maybe even cracked her skull, but her concentration was on getting the flaming figure beneath her to hear her. “Knox, pull back!” He didn’t respond, and the fire continued to rage. “Pull back!” Just when she was about to pummel the shit out of him with her fists, the flames seemed to peel away from him, starting from his head and making their way down his body. “Thank fuck.”
Eyes of pure black met hers. “Mine,” stated the demon, as if that was all it recognized her as right then.
“Well, yeah, but that’s not important right now. Knox! Seriously, answer me!”
The demon blinked, and then it was Knox looking back at her, brows drawn together. “Harper.” Her name was a guttural growl.
“Knox, pull back the flames. Now.” She wasn’t sure whether it was as effortless for him as it looked to be, but a single sweep of his gaze at the fire seemed to have it instantly beginning to calm. It wasn’t just calming, it was shrinking and thinning out.
An emotional mess, she dropped her forehead to his chest, panting hard. “For a minute there, I didn’t think you were coming back from that.”
Sitting them upright, Knox pressed a kiss to her temple. “I almost didn’t.” He’d had one goal in mind: To get to Harper. He’d been willing to destroy everything that stood in his way. His anger had blurred his thoughts, given him tunnel vision until he hadn’t spared a thought for anyone but her. Not even for his sentinels.
